Dictionary.com
definitions

spruce beer

|

noun

a fermented beverage made with spruce leaves and twigs, or an extract from them.

Origin of spruce beer

First recorded in 1490–1500
Dictionary.com Unabridged Based on the Random House Unabridged Dictionary, © Random House, Inc. 2019

Examples from the Web for spruce beer

Historical Examples of spruce beer

  • Spruce-beer is made from the young shoots of the American Black Spruce.

  • Barrels of cider and spruce-beer are running freely into the wooden canteens of the soldiers.

    Old News

    Nathaniel Hawthorne

  • In two minutes, however, he relented in his own favour; and muttering something about spruce-beer, walked off.

    Emma

    Jane Austen

  • On this last signal, a whole cloud of spruce-beer sellers started fiercely from under the piazzas.

    Tom Cringle's Log

    Michael Scott

  • At Washington we dined, and I drank some spruce-beer (for the first time in my life), and I found myself very unwell from it.

British Dictionary definitions for spruce beer

spruce beer

noun

an alcoholic drink made of fermented molasses flavoured with spruce twigs and cones
Collins English Dictionary - Complete & Unabridged 2012 Digital Edition © William Collins Sons & Co. Ltd. 1979, 1986 © HarperCollins Publishers 1998, 2000, 2003, 2005, 2006, 2007, 2009, 2012