the sugarmaker's companion: brewing, fermenting, and distilling with tree sap and syrup

8/10/2019 The Sugarmaker's Companion: Brewing, Fermenting, and Distilling with Tree Sap and Syrup

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Value-Added Products 21

command in the marketplace makes it well worth thehigher cost o production. While homebrewers havebeen using maple and birch or decades to make vari-ous wines, beers, and liquors, an increasing number obusinesses are now commercializing these products.Te ollowing paragraphs highlight some o the manycompanies that are success ully turning maple andbirch sap and syrup into protable alcoholic beverages.It is ar rom an all-inclusive list, but does provide anoverview o what is possible.

Maple Sap AleMaking beer rom the last run o sap is a tradition that is now making a comeback. Ma

ago, rather than making really dark and potenavored syrup rom the yellowish, bacteria-lathe end o the season, some sugarmakers useto brew a strong beer. Tey would boil it down and then add yeast, hops, and perhaps some sugar, then stick it in a barrel or a ew mont was ready. Te tradition o sap beer was populathat Vermont artist John Cassel recorded a about sap beer in the 1970s. Tis practice was

orgotten or decades, yet is being revived may get a boost rom popular media stories thcently highlighted sap beer being brewed in V

Kevin Lawson specializes in small batches ne beers at his Sugarhouse Brewery in Warmont. He has brewed beer with resh sap, bu

erred method is to use the partially boiled-dthat comes off the evaporator at the end o thMany sugarmakers will chase the last o the sthe pan by eeding in permeate or water wheno more sap to boil. Once the contents o thetor become diluted to the point that it doesn

sense to keep boiling, many sugarmakers will the remaining contents. When Kevin heard abhe asked a couple o sugarmakers to skip thaltogether. When there is no more quality sapthey simply drain the pans and bring the conKevin. With everything mixed together, thcontent usually ranges between 10 and 14. Kturns this into the Maple ripple Ale, a ne b

J Brewing, Fermenting,and Distilling withTree Sap and Syrup

Te sap and syrup rom maple and birch trees can beused or brewing, ermenting, and distilling into a wide variety o alcoholic beverages. Since maple and birchsap basically consist o water and sugar, they are excel-lent raw materials or brewing, ermenting, and distill-ing. Although sap and syrup are relatively expensive rawmaterials, the premium price that the nished products



The Sugarmaker’s Companion212

recently won the Silver Cup at the 2012 WorlCup or Specialty Beers. Kevin makes it a poinget the partially boiled sap rom a couple o sers who stop making syrup be ore the sap start

buddy or off-avored. I you try this at homethat whatever liquid you draw off the evaporatand smells good. I you have already reached the season when you are producing an off-commercial-grade syrup, then your beer probabbe winning any awards!

Te Lake Placid Pub & Brewery also experim with maple sap beer in 2012 with great succesLitcheld, the head brewer, simply replac360-gallon kettle o water with sap and then a5 gallons o maple syrup at the end or a maplale. Not an overly sweet beer, it had just a hint avor. Te beer was extremely popular and solda ew short weeks, much sooner than other varieties. Given the success o the maple sap used maple sap to replace water or their sUbu ale in 2013. Te sap added a little extra swand potency to the beer, making their most pbeer even better.

Maple Beers Whereas maple sap ales can only be made period every year, beers that include maple syrbrewed year round. Te microbrewery businessUnited States has been exploding in recent year

ocus on small batches o unique beers. By usmall amount o maple syrup, you can make sweet beer that tastes great and has excellent mappeal. Tis trend seems to be catching on, as tha number o breweries that now include a maptheir assortment o craf brews. Sam Adams, on

largest craf breweries in the US, goes through maple syrup when making their Maple PecanAlthough I doubt anyone along the lines o Bu will ever be brewing with pure maple, there 2,000 microbreweries in the country, so i you near your sugaring operation, see i they wan your syrup or a seasonal special. Maple beerbe especially popular during the autumn when

FIGURE . . The Lake Placid Pub & Brewery has had great success intheir experiments with maple sap ales.PHOTO BY NANCIE BATTAGLIA

FIGURE . . This may look like an ordinary fermentation tank at theLake Placid Pub & Brewery, but Kevin Litcheld is lling it with 360 gallonsof fresh maple sap to be brewed into a maple sap ale.




I suspect most o the avoring agents are csynthesized or come rom the bark and otherthe tree rather than the sap.

Te big opportunity that I see with birch beer birch sap to replace water in regular beer recthough there is con usion over what birch beeis, the name is common enough that it invokescuriosity. Using clear, resh birch sap rom theo the season in lieu o water allows brewera unique “birch beer” that has excellent mark

peal. Te birch sap probably won’t change the whatever beer is made with it, but since bircspring tonic ull o minerals and nutrients, it the beer a bit healthier than your standard b provides an excellent marketing angle. Te LakPub & Brewery used 360 gallons o our birchate a birch beer in 2013; it was very success uare already looking orward to doing it again

leaves are at their peak colors; they should become evenmore popular in March when the sap is owingthroughout the Northeast.

Birch BeerAlthough many o us have probably heard o birch beer,

ew people actually know what it is. Historically, thesap rom black birch ( Betula lenta ) trees was used to produce a non-alcoholic, carbonated beverage similar

to root beer. Tere were also some regions that createdalcoholic versions o the product, but this was the ex-ception rather than the norm. Te vast majority o birchbeer on the market today uses articial avoring andsweeteners to create a carbonated soda with a uniqueavor reminiscent o wintergreen. Some manu acturersclaim that they use birch oil that has been distilled romthe sap o birch trees, though this seems highly unlikely.

FIGURE . . Mark VanGlad of Tundra Brewery produces a MaPale Ale with the maple syrup, grains, and hops grown on his farm iproduces all the ingredients himself, he is able to sell the majority of his beer at producer-only greenmarkets in New York City.PHOTO COURTESY OF DONNA




Birch WineTere are several companies throughout the world usingbirch sap as one o the main ingredients in wines. One o

these is Sapworld, which is owned and operated by CraigLewis in New oundland. In addition to other birch-derived products, he has developed and copyrightedSpringwine, aka Lady o the Woods. Its marketing ap- peal is based on the act that he uses birch sap rom the pristine orests o New oundland that is ull o mineralsand nutrients. Sugar is added to the birch sap until thesugar content is high enough or ermenting into wine.According to their marketing materials, this wine . . .“shows clear and bright in the glass; provides a delicate

ragrance o sof apple and pear; sits well in the mouth with pleasant acids balancing the evident ruit sugars; persistent avors o ripe pear, Mandarin orange, andDelicious apple blend harmoniously and without bitter-ness.” Tis certainly sounds good, and with the naturalorigin o birch trees, it makes or a winning combination.

Boreal Bounty is another company rom the Manitobaregion that specializes in birch wine and other boreal or-est products. Started in 2005 by Doug Eryou in conjunc-tion with the D. D. Leobard Winery o Winnipeg, theydeveloped a wine called ansi derived rom birch sap. Inaddition to their standard birch sap wine, they also have a wide range o products that use the extracts o other bo-real trees and plants. Teir list o wines includes birch sapmixed with cherry, lingonberry, sea buckthorn, cranberry,and Saskatoon. Tey also utilize the sap o boxelders—the only species o maple growing in Manitoba.

Maple Wine While touring different sugarbushes in uebec a ew years ago I met Alberto Milan, the owner o a Canadian

wine company. Tis was during the height o the reces-sion when many businesses were suffering, yet Alberto’ssales were soaring. He provided us with a brilliant ratio-nale or why he decided to ocus on using maple or winerather than as a pancake topping. According to Alberto,“When the economy is good, people have lots o moneyand they like to celebrate and drink alcohol . . . and whenthe economy is bad, people are upset and like to drown

FIGURE . . An assortment of birch wines with boreal fruit avPHOTO

COURTESY OF FRANK FIEBER

FIGURE . . Venerable is a great name for a maplewine—it has connotations ofstrength and makes greatuse of the French word formaple:erable. PHOTO COURTESY

OF ALDO NEYRA

FIGURE . . Maple ice wines extremely sweet and do make an elent after-dinner drink. People exice wines to be sweet, so marketmaple version makes sense, as eveassociates maple with being sweet.PHOTO

COURTESY OF ALDO NEYRA




Sap House Meadery was started in 2010 by tins, Ash Fischbein and Matt rahan. Both workrestaurant business or many years, but had growcooking and wanted to do something different. S

were both avid homebrewers, they decided to sing wine with local ingredients rom their regaren’t any grapes in New Hampshire, but there ia lot o maple syrup! Afer visiting 35 sugarhouthe state, they were especially impressed with ttion at Windswept Maples and started to get theexclusively rom them. Most o their meads aremade with maple syrup, but rather use a blendsyrup with honey—this is known as an acergl people expect maple mead to be excessively depending on how it is made, it certainly can bever, by properly controlling the sugar concentrermentation, it is possible to make maple-symeads that are relatively dry or semi-sweet. Ao experimentation, Ash told me he ound thbalance that seems to work or them. Tey hav won awards or their signature Sugar Maplethe International Wine Festival in the Finger LNew York. Tey also produce a variety o otheutilizing local ingredients, including their Blueberry Maple, Blackberry Maple, and Peac

Meaderies have been gaining in popularity years. Ash told me that when they started, thonly 35 meaderies in the country and 2 in Nland. In the past two years, 6 more meaderies oNew England and there are now over 100 in thStates. Mead is considered “other wine” by thgovernment, and there are some hassles in deathe bureaucracy o creating and selling alcohoages. However, i you are willing to go throured tape, there are excellent opportunities in some o your maple syrup into another valuab

Maple Liquors and SpiritsMaple syrup can be distilled into hard alcoholsadded to nished products as a avoring agent. tilleries are becoming increasingly popular as menact legislation that supports these operationthan orbidding them as they have in the past. S

their sorrows by drinking alcohol.” So no matter whathappens with the economy, the sale o alcoholic bever-ages continues to grow. Sales have been particularlystrong in China and are now expanding into the USmarket through a distributor under the name o MapleConnoisseur. His company produces a table wine, spar-kling wine, and ice wine all made with pure maple syrup.Te process involves diluting the syrup with water andthen starting the ermentation process until most o thesugar is consumed by yeast. Venerable is the table wineand is not nearly as sweet as you would imagine it to be,though the ice wine denitely packs a punch.

Maple MeadI was rst introduced to maple mead by Jeff Moore, a sev-enth-generation sugarmaker rom Windswept MaplesFarm in Loudon, New Hampshire. He went to PaulSmith’s College in the Adirondacks and spent a lot o his

ree time in the spring helping at our sugaring operation in

Lake Placid. I’ve gotten to know Jeff and the Moore amily well over the years; my wi e and I visited their arm duringour honeymoon in summer 2011. As a wedding gif, theygave us a couple o bottles o mead that was produced

rom their maple syrup by the Sap House Meadery inCenter Ossippee, New Hampshire. We were both greatlyimpressed with the quality o the mead, so I reachedout to the owners to learn more about their company.

FIGURE . . Two of the most popular mead varieties produced with maplesyrup by the Saphouse Meadery in New Hampshire.PHOTO COURTESY OF CRIS DOW




J Final Thoughts:Buying and SellingValue-Added Products

Making and marketing value-added products is a lotferent from producing maple syrup. It is certainly for everyone! However, even if you don’t have the interest, or desire to make your own value-added m products, don’t let that stop you from selling them. Tare many sugarmakers and companies that offer wholesale prices) a variety of maple products to smakers who then sell them in their own retail mark

Te common ones include maple sugar, cream, acandy, but there are many more. You can get these w just a generic label on the package, with your own plabel, or in completely unmarked boxes. You can add your own label or unique packaging and mark up price for retail sales. Selling these products will alsdraw in customers who wish to purchase the value-ad products and pick up some of your syrup in the proc

Buy our Pure Maple Products

and Gourmet Foods

Are you interested inexpanding your product line?

The following products are available fromour licensed kitchen:

❑ Hot Maple Mustard❑ Sweet Maple Mustard❑ Granulated Maple Sugar❑ Maple Cotton Candy Mix❑ Maple Garlic Pepper❑ Maple Barbeque Sauce

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Buy it in bulk or in consumer containers packaged without labelsso you can put on your own label.

Merle Maple Farm, 1884 Route 98, Attica, NY 14011Phone: 585-535-7136, email: [email protected]

Visit us on the web, www.merlemaple.com

FIGURE . . This advertisement from Merle Maple Farms shoof the many products that you could have produced for you undlabel. There are several sugaring operations that have expandedings in recent years to supply the growing markets for value-aproducts.IMAGE COURTESY OF KATE ZIEHM

syrup is so expensive, it makes much more sense to use itas a avoring agent rather than simply as a source of sugarfor distillation purposes. However, with the increasingamount of off-avored, commercial-grade syrups being produced at the end of the season these days, I suspect thatthis could change. Tanks to advances in vacuum tubingand spout designs, many sugarmakers are still gathering plenty of sap at the end of the season when the syrup being produced is no longer t for human consumption. Tistype of syrup is perfect for distilling into vodkas and otherspirits, since none of the off-avor will come through inthe nished product. You can then add some high-qualitysyrup for avoring to have a 100 percent pure maple spirit.

Crown Royal recently came out with a maple “n-ished” whiskey. Te advertising and label on the bottleare very deceptive, leading people to believe that itcontains pure maple. In actuality, this is simply a CrownRoyal whiskey with “natural” maple avors added at theend of the process. Te whiskey has gotten a lot of atten-tion and could have done a lot to promote pure maple,

but unfortunately it turned out to be just another scorefor articial avoring. Interestingly enough, the parentcompany of Crown Royal also recently bought outCabin Fever, a small company in New Hampshire thatis making maple-avored whiskey with pure, Grade Bmaple syrup. What started as a small hobby in the Rob-illard family garage is now a very successful business thatis being marketed throughout the world by Diageo.

FIGURE . . Cabin Fever whiskey uses pure maple syrup to provide aunique marketing angle and superb avor.PHOTO BY NANCIE BATTAGLIA

the sugarmaker's companion: brewing, fermenting, and distilling with tree sap and syrup

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