A Nova Scotia brewery looking to bottle the taste of the holidays didn’t look to classic flavours like gingerbread or peppermint. Instead, they went straight to the source: Christmas trees.
The brewmaster of the Saltbox Brewery in Mahone Bay, N.S. said his unique concoction, a 6.3 per cent lager dubbed the balsam blue ale, gets its flavour from a special blend of balsam fir trees and local blueberries.
“The balsam had a little bit of a bitterness to it, and then I used the blueberries to sweeten it to kind of balance the two flavours together,” Jeremy Fehr told CTV Atlantic.
The recipe is a riff off one of the brewer’s classic recipes, and the beer-making process involves sourcing the firs and stripping them of their aromatic needles.
“We peeled all the little needles off of the branches and put them into a cloth bag, and then we add that into the boil,” Fehr explained.
The brewery is promoting the balsam blue ale as a taste of Lunenberg County, the surrounding region known as the Christmas tree capital of the world thanks to its thriving balsam fir industry.
The brewery’s managing director said the beer has been a quick hit among locals.
“I kind of thought it would be a one-time try, that people would want to experience it once, but people are coming back again and again,” said Patrick Jardine.
Among those fans is Frank Strum, a Christmas tree salesman who’s been selling trees in a parking lot for a few years.
“Yup, it’s a good beer. Very good. Yup,” said Strum.
With files from CTV Atlantic
