Substance Ale - Spruce Tip
Bissell Brothers Brewing in Portland, Maine, United States 🇺🇸
IPA - Flavoured Winter|
Score
7.30
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We don’t like to abuse the beer that built our brewery, so when we play with Substance, we do it right. This brand new number is no exception, using ridiculous amounts of foraged spruce tips in the hot and cold sides to thread in a restrained-but-unmistakable note of Mother Earth into our flagship IPA.
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7.5/10
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Appearance 8
Aroma 7.5
Flavor 7.5
Texture 7
Overall 7.5
Can (12/11/25) from trade with CLW--thanks, Chris! Cloudy yellow with nice sparkle, ample head with good retention and light lacing. Aroma is sweet/tart citrus, mild spruce. Taste is strong citrus, grape and spruce. Smooth, frothy texture, soft carbonation, dry finish with mild bitterness. Compared to other reviews, fair to say this should be drunk fresh as spruce seems to have faded rather quickly.
Tried
from Can
on 17 Mar 2026
at 03:06
7.8/10
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Appearance 7
Aroma 7.5
Flavor 8
Texture 7
Overall 8.5
Can from Tavour. Pours hazy gold with a large foamish white head that slowly laced. Aroma has an evergreen thing that suggests spruce. Med body. Somewhat juicy. But well towards dry and fairly bitter. Flavor is evergreen and citrus with a bit of resin. Quite tasty.
Tried
from Can
from Tavour
on 07 Feb 2026
at 01:07
8/10
—
Appearance 8
Aroma 8
Flavor 8
Texture 8
Overall 8
Canned 12/11/25, drunk 1/20/26, as pictured.
Mild hop (wood, lemon, grapefruit) with a tasteful amount of not-very-resinous spruce. Christmasy spice with biscuity malts and overall inviting balance and aromatics.
Quite a bit more spruce comes through in the flavor, with a good deal of malt to balance. I will give them that they got a lot of flavor from the spruce with very low acidity. Some wood and citrus behind it gently adds to the picture from the hops and the malt is deep and attenuated. Well-done, tasteful.
Mild hop (wood, lemon, grapefruit) with a tasteful amount of not-very-resinous spruce. Christmasy spice with biscuity malts and overall inviting balance and aromatics.
Quite a bit more spruce comes through in the flavor, with a good deal of malt to balance. I will give them that they got a lot of flavor from the spruce with very low acidity. Some wood and citrus behind it gently adds to the picture from the hops and the malt is deep and attenuated. Well-done, tasteful.
Tried
from Can
from Tavour
on 20 Jan 2026
at 20:38
7.9/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 7.5
Flavor 8.5
Texture 9
Overall 8
16 oz. can. Aroma has bold citrus fruit with mild bready malt. Spruce is very soft in the aroma. But once you sip, no hiding this spruce. Does have a decent malt background with some citrus as a counter point. A very good spruce ale.
Tried
from Can
at
Bissell Brothers Brewing Company
on 16 Jan 2026
at 22:25
7.1/10
—
Appearance 6
Aroma 7
Flavor 7
Texture 8
Overall 7.5
Can from Jeff, thanks for the opportunity! Hazy lemon yellow in color with a frothy bone white head that slowly recedes. Resinous pine and earthy wood with hints of sweet bready maltiness. I'm not a fan of spruce beers, but this one is subtle.
Tried
from Can
on 28 Jan 2021
at 23:42