Spruce Pilsner
Short's Brewing Company in Elk Rapids, Michigan, United States 🇺🇸
Spiced / Herbed / Vegetable / Honey - Herbal Rotating|
Score
6.92
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Every June the Short’s team gathers and heads to the wilderness to hand-trim the fresh, juicy tips off of local blue spruce trees so that we can make a couple of very special beers, including Spruce Pilsner. This is a historic beer for us, one of the 13 beers in the 2007 Imperial Beer Series, and admittedly one of Joe Short’s favorites. But how does it taste, you ask? Exactly the way a spruce tree smells. If you love gin, if you love the smell of pine, you will love this beer.
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Oakes (33493) ticked Spruce Pilsner from Short's Brewing Company 14 years ago
Sledutah (12313) reviewed Spruce Pilsner from Short's Brewing Company 14 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7.5
On tap at Falling Rock, GABF weekend
Appearance: Hazy yellow with a big white head and good lacing
Aroma: Spruce, pine and pilsner malt
Taste: Spruce, light malts with a bitter finish
A nice unique beer.
jcr (3164) reviewed Spruce Pilsner from Short's Brewing Company 14 years ago
Appearance - 3 | Aroma - 8 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 3 | Overall - 12
Bottle. Light, golden body. Fizzy white head. Aroma of spruce, pine, toasted grain, pilsner malts. The flavor is moderately sweet and moderately bitter. It finishes lightly to moderately sweet and moderately bitter. Medium body, watery texture and lively carbonation. Big spruce flavor along with alpha hops. At first sip, you don’t think this will work, but it does for awhile. Just barely. It walks the edge of too much spruce for the first 8 ounces. Then it falls off the edge. Hard to drink more than one unless you really like the flavor of spruce. Thanks SpudClampDawg. --- Beer merged from original tick of Spruce India Pilsner: Imperial on 10 Jul 2008 at 21:40 - Score: Appearance - 4 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 4 | Overall - 14. Original review text: 750 ml. Brewed on 4-30-07. What an interesting beer — especially if you like a big spruce flavor. Beautiful orange pour with big, frothy head. Huge, delicious aroma of juicy grapefruit, fresh-squeezed orange juice, spruce, pine, resin. Hints of caramel and sweet honey. The flavor is moderately sweet and moderately to heavily bitter. The finish remains bitter and dry. The flavor has the strong taste of spruce, like chewing on needles. In fact, the spruce overwhelms the other nice qualities of the beer. Medium body and velvet texture. If the spruce had been dialed down a couple of notches, allowing the nice malt backbone to share the stage, I would think this right up there with Dreadnaught. But the spruce is just too overpowering. Nonetheless, kudos to the brewery for one heck of a a fun beer to drink.
ericsc (2969) ticked Spruce Pilsner from Short's Brewing Company 14 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 7 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 4.5
Bottle @ home, courtesy of bushmat1. Thanks Matt! Cloudy yellow appearance with a fluffy white head. Huge spruce, pine, hoppy, light malty nose with some fruit undertones. Light fruitiness, huge spruce, pine, earthy, hoppiness. Sappy, spruce aftertaste. Very interesting but a little over the top for me.
Appearance - 10 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
12oz bottle-thanks to jtclockwork for sharing–pours a white head and bright yellow color. Aroma is spruce/resin, light malt. Taste is spruce sap/resin.
jtclockwork (20061) reviewed Spruce Pilsner from Short's Brewing Company 15 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 10 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6.5
Bottle thanks to Styles; shared with Jcwattsrugger. Pours clear gold. Nose is in your face spruce, pine, resin and fresh apples - almost like sticking your face inside a spruce tree. Taste is a less remarkable mixture of grassy hops, spruce, pine and resin.
Drake (22934) reviewed Spruce Pilsner from Short's Brewing Company 15 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 7 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 7
12 ounce bottle courtesy of deyholla. Thanks! Pours a clear pale yellow color with a large white bubbly head. Good head retention and lacing. Aroma of resiny, piney notes, no doubt from the spruce and the hops, some citeus, and some pale malty notes. The taste is very intense pine notes, very herbal, almost rosemary-like. Very bitter. That pretty much dominates anything else, but I think I sense some caramel malts in there. Medium bodied. Wow, what a beer. Not well balanced and not really a great beer, but certainly different from most spruce beers and quite interesting.
Sebletitje (15877) reviewed Spruce Pilsner from Short's Brewing Company 15 years ago
Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 9 | Flavor - 8 | Texture - 10 | Overall - 9
Dog Days of Summer Gathering, thanks GoT. Ahhhh the fresh scent of pine forest and pine needles blend. I could drink this beer all day. light golden color, white head. aroma, just wonderful pine forest, fresh hops spruce is all over. flavors, similar to nose, delicious, piney, spruce, refreshing, mild pale/crystal malt giving a faint biscuity mouthfeel and a moderate hop bitterness, quickly overtaken by all the spruce, could be a bit over the top but I am digging this beer. Lingering earthly notes with a palate that has spruce written all over it. --- Beer merged from original tick of Spruce India Pilsner: Imperial on 16 Aug 2009 at 12:43 - Score: Appearance - 8 | Aroma - 10 | Flavor - 9 | Texture - 8 | Overall - 9. Original review text: courtesy of the Shorts tasting night group. early ’07 bottle. Simply wow, I could smell this beer all day and dream of back home. pours golden/orange with white head. Aroma reminded me a lot of the backwoods back home. As if they had thrown a whole forest in a bottle, spruce seeds are just present and of pure goodness. Just could not stop marveling at the aroma. Lots of grassy and earthly hops, pine forest scent. Flavor, very herbal, vegetal, spicy hops, light citrus hops with hints of grapefruit. Not overly bitter but just some nice pine and earthly goodness with spruce seeds. Finish with light pepper spices. Insanely good, a looking glass that projects you in the middle of a spruce/pine forest.
deyholla (22727) reviewed Spruce Pilsner from Short's Brewing Company 15 years ago
Appearance - 6 | Aroma - 6 | Flavor - 6 | Texture - 6 | Overall - 6
Bottle. Poured a clear gold that was slightly dark with a white head that dissipated to the edges. Aroma was full of pine, mainly spruce, and was quite one note. Flavor was similar with very strong pine that built to impressive bitterness and a slight backing of syrupy grain that helped mellow the intense spruce flavor a bit. A bit much for me.