Black Creek celebrates Battle of Black Creek with Spruce beer
Celebrating the re-enactment of the Battle of Black Creek Revolutionary War, Toronto’s Black Creek Historic Brewery will this week introduce a new Spruce beer.
“Colonial soldiers learned from the First Nations peoples that spruce could prevent and cure scurvy”, writes Black Creek. “Scurvy was recognized as a disease caused by a lack of fresh fruits and vegetables, but it wasn’t understood to be caused by a deficiency of Vitamin C until 1932. Thus, while soldiers and sailors didn’t know that spruce was an excellent source of Vitamin C or why Spruce Beer kept scurvy at bay, they did know it was good for what ailed them!”
Black Creek’s recipe, developed by brewmaster Ed Koren, uses a mix of barley and organic blackstrap molasses to create a more “palatable” flavour compared to Spruce beers of the 1930s, which were similar to a mixtured of turpentine and Vicks, according to Koren.
This Brown ale-style beer offers hints of pine, smoke, treacle (molasses) and oak.
Available only through Black Creek, their Spruce beer goes on sale in 1.89l growlers for a limited time beginning Friday, June 15.
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