It is officially spring….we might say summer but sometimes we don’t get one in the Yukon. The birch trees produced their magical syrup, Berwyn did his alchemy yet again, and we have knocked off one more version of our Birch Marzen. It is really hard to say how it differs from the year before, because we go 10 months without it, then 2 months (or less) with it. Birch sap does not keep. We have to rely on our beer memory, and those neural receptors are sometimes overworked around here, if not completely MIA.
This year the Birch Marzen is very dry, it almost seems like some of those unfermentable sugars in the syrup were – fermentable after all. The beer started at a higher gravity than in past years, and finished lower. The beer is less sweet and very, very crisp. The colour is a magnificent deep bronze, and the tartness of the birch comes straight on through like an arrow.
One of the gang in the store summed it up nicely today – “I took home a growler last night, figuring it would last a couple of days – and here I am, filling it up again”. So get in here, and fill yours.