DCHP-1 Online
spruce beer 
a drink made from boiling tender spruce shoots, straining off the liquid, adding sugar or molasses, fermenting with yeast, and allowing to cool, widely used among pioneers and still made in some places.
See also: spruce tea
- 1741 (1852) I have given them, ever since our English beer has been expended, spruce beer and brandy, the only means used here to prevent the scurvy.
- 1816 (1818) . . . we stopped to bait our steed, and selves a few miles beyond, at a solitary log hut in the centre of a forest; where, besides oats, we found excellent spruce beer made on the spot, and gingerbread cakes, as the sign specified, being underwritten "Cakes and Beer."
- 1928 He continued all the long morning, only stopping now and then to take a drink of spruce beer from the stone jug under the fence, or to sharpen his scythe. . . .
- 1963 Spruce beer, ice cream, bands and abstract art are features of a promotion in which Montreal has been engaged during the past few years to brighten the city's image for visitors.
- 1741 (1852) I have given them, ever since our English beer has been expended, spruce beer and brandy, the only means used here to prevent the scurvy.