DIY Birch Beer

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Monday is Memorial Day, and what's more patriotic than making a beverage for your cookout using an ingredient from your own backyard?

If you're a New Englander like me, you may have seen bottles of birch beer in restaurant fridges or even at your local grocery store.

If you've never tasted it, it has a delighful wintergreen taste that slightly resembles root beer.

I myself have drunk storebought versions and made my own for years! Now it's time to show you how.

NOTE: This recipe takes HOURS to make, so you may want to do this on a day off... maybe Sunday!

 

Also, this is a non-alcoholic recipe. If you're looking for a fermented birch beer, there are plenty of other tutorials for that on equally rebellious blogs. ;)

I may make such a tutorial myself once I'm of age.

YOU WILL NEED:

- Sharp, straight-edged knife

- Mixing Bowl

- Pot/Saucepan

- Hella birch twigs

- Sugar (ideally a kind that won't affect flavor)

- Water

- Something to stir with

- A Sodastream machine + bottle

 

STEP 1. IDENTIFY MATERIALS

 

Make sure you're in an area with the "right" kind of birch tree. This is fairly easy to determine- just snap off a twig and sniff it. If it smells like wintergreen, that's the right kind. This may be the most reliable method if you can't visually identify the trees. You may want to know what birch trees look like anyway, just to make things easier.

Birch trees are commonly mixed up with beech trees, which don't taste like anything. Birch trees have finely-toothed leaves and smooth, brown bark on the younger twigs, while beech trees have more coarsely-toothed leaves (more space between "spikes" in the leaves). Below are some pictures of birch and beech trees for comparison:

A birch twig- notice the leaves grow in pairs, the shape of the leaves and their fine toothing. The bark is slightly silvery.

A birch tree.

Closeup of birch bark.

A beech twig. Notice that the leaves are in larger clumps, with coarser toothing. Leaves are larger than birch; slightly diamond-shaped.

A beech tree.

Closeup of beech bark. Hard to tell the difference, but its smoothness makes it the preferred type for carving your name into. Also don't do that.

 

STEP 2. GATHER MATERIALS

For this post, I've gathered all my raw materials from a fallen tree in the woods. It fell a couple weeks ago, and it's still semi-alive!

You don't need any special equipment to get the branches- you can snap them off with your bare hands like a freakin' animal! It's great!

STEP 3. STRIP THE BARK

This one is simultaneously my favorite and least favorite part. I love it because I get to use a knife, and I hate it because it's so tedious.

You just get a sharp knife, like my (clean!) Buck pocketknife I found on the side of the road a couple years ago, and you just...!

 

 

The knife only has to be sharp enough to take off the bark, but it must have a straight edge.

The sharper the knife, the faster you can strip the bark, but the harder it will be to avoid catching wood. The wood is obviously harmless, but it's extra bulk that doesn't add flavor.

You also need a collection vessel for your bark, for which I use a mixing bowl.

STEP 4. INFUSION

Put all of your bark in a saucepan or pot and put in just enough water to cover it.

Then set the burner to low, cover the pot... and leave it! Really!

It just has to be at a low simmer. The last time I did this, I believe I simmered it for 4-6 hours. Maybe even more. This is not the step where you worry about burning!

STEP 5. FILTERING

Now that all your bark is limp and flavorless, remove and dispose of it. Your bark water will have a bunch of sediment on the bottom. I think it's mostly lichen, but I've never worried about it. If you do worry, you can use a coffee filter. Just remember that it takes a while.

STEP 6. REDUCTION

This is the step where you worry about burning.

I wanted to make a large (read: normal-sized) batch this time, so I'm using a half cup of sugar instead of my usual quarter cup.

I prefer to use unbleached cane sugar because it's not (quite as) refined, but I'm not a sugar elitist. That would go against my moral code as a rebel! 

You can use whatever sugar you want, but I prefer to use one that doesn't change the flavor. Also, I advise against using confectioners' sugar since it contains cornstarch and that could affect the flavor and/or thicken the syrup in a weird way.

Put the sugar into your bark-water, stir it until the sugar dissolves and let it reduce for a few more hours on medium-low heat.

This time, you should check on it and stir it often to make sure it doesn't burn.

After the syrup has reduced and thickened enough, let it cool. It only has to cool down enough that you feel safe putting it in your Sodastream bottle.

Your syrup should be reduced to where you can make the seltzer and THEN add the syrup, because otherwise you may clog the nozzle on your machine.

STEP 7. CHILL

Okayyy! Your soda should be ready to- Oh, no, wait. It's lukewarm.

Don't worry, though. If your Memorial Day party is starting soon, just put the bottle in your cooler with ice and salt water.

If you have at least another day, you can just put your birch beer in the fridge overnight.

And there you have it! You can unveil that baby at your cookout for everyone to enjoy... until you run out after 30 seconds.

Sigh.

CONCLUSION

 

 

The final flavor is a little bitter. Not like tonic water or even Moxie, but just a little tannic. I believe the tannins in the bark are what give the birch beer its brown color. It doesn't just taste like wintergreen, either. It has this other taste that I can only describe as gingerbready. My dad said it tastes "lager-y", which I can't personally attest to as an 18-year-old, but it sounds like a good thing.

I only "discovered" this technique fairly recently, but it yields a much better result than what I used to do, which was to put the sugar and the bark in at the same time and boil the crap out of it.

If you want to save time, you can use a higher heat, but I would still keep the infusion and reduction stages separate. And, of course, you would have to pay a little more attention.

Have a good Memorial Day, and remember to stay sexy.