Value-Added Products

J Brewing, Fermenting,
and Distilling with
Tree Sap and Syrup

The sap and syrup from maple and birch trees can be
used for brewing, fermenting, and distilling into a wide
variety of alcoholic beverages. Since maple and birch
sap basically consist of water and sugar, they are excellent raw materials for brewing, fermenting, and distilling. Although sap and syrup are relatively expensive raw
materials, the premium price that the finished products
command in the marketplace makes it well worth the
higher cost of production. While homebrewers have
been using maple and birch for decades to make various wines, beers, and liquors, an increasing number of
businesses are now commercializing these products.
The following paragraphs highlight some of the many
companies that are successfully turning maple and
birch sap and syrup into profitable alcoholic beverages.
It is far from an all-inclusive list, but does provide an
overview of what is possible.

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Maple Sap Ale

Making beer from the last run of sap is a forgotten
tradition that is now making a comeback. Many years
ago, rather than making really dark and potentially offflavored syrup from the yellowish, bacteria-laden sap at
the end of the season, some sugarmakers used this sap
to brew a strong beer. They would boil it down partially
and then add yeast, hops, and perhaps some raisins or
sugar, then stick it in a barrel for a few months until it
was ready. The tradition of sap beer was popular enough
that Vermont artist John Cassel recorded a song all
about sap beer in the 1970s. This practice was mostly
forgotten for decades, yet is being revived today and
may get a boost from popular media stories that have recently highlighted sap beer being brewed in Vermont.4
Kevin Lawson specializes in small batches of unique,
fine beers at his Sugarhouse Brewery in Warren, Vermont. He has brewed beer with fresh sap, but his preferred method is to use the partially boiled-down sap
that comes off the evaporator at the end of the season.
Many sugarmakers will chase the last of the syrup out of
the pan by feeding in permeate or water when there is
no more sap to boil. Once the contents of the evaporator become diluted to the point that it doesnt make
sense to keep boiling, many sugarmakers will just dump
the remaining contents. When Kevin heard about this,
he asked a couple of sugarmakers to skip this process
altogether. When there is no more quality sap to boil,
they simply drain the pans and bring the contents to
Kevin. With everything mixed together, the sugar
content usually ranges between 10 and 14. Kevin now
turns this into the Maple Tripple Ale, a fine beer that

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The Sugarmakers Companion

FIGURE 11.21. The Lake Placid Pub & Brewery has had great success in
their experiments with maple sap ales. PHOTO BY NANCIE BATTAGLIA

FIGURE 11.22. This may look like an ordinary fermentation tank at the
Lake Placid Pub & Brewery, but Kevin Litchfield is filling it with 360 gallons
of fresh maple sap to be brewed into a maple sap ale.

recently won the Silver Cup at the 2012 World Beer

Cup for Specialty Beers. Kevin makes it a point to only
get the partially boiled sap from a couple of sugarmakers who stop making syrup before the sap starts to turn
buddy or off-flavored. If you try this at home, be sure
that whatever liquid you draw off the evaporator tastes
and smells good. If you have already reached a point in
the season when you are producing an off-flavored
commercial-grade syrup, then your beer probably wont
be winning any awards!
The Lake Placid Pub & Brewery also experimented
with maple sap beer in 2012 with great success. Kevin
Litchfield, the head brewer, simply replaced the
360-gallon kettle of water with sap and then added in
5 gallons of maple syrup at the end for a maple sap pale
ale. Not an overly sweet beer, it had just a hint of maple
flavor. The beer was extremely popular and sold out in
a few short weeks, much sooner than other seasonal
varieties. Given the success of the maple sap ale, Kevin
used maple sap to replace water for their signature
Ubu ale in 2013. The sap added a little extra sweetness
and potency to the beer, making their most popular
beer even better.

Maple Beers
Whereas maple sap ales can only be made for a brief
period every year, beers that include maple syrup can be
brewed year round. The microbrewery business in the
United States has been exploding in recent years with a
focus on small batches of unique beers. By using just a
small amount of maple syrup, you can make a slightly
sweet beer that tastes great and has excellent marketing
appeal. This trend seems to be catching on, as there are
a number of breweries that now include a maple beer in
their assortment of craft brews. Sam Adams, one of the
largest craft breweries in the US, goes through a lot of
maple syrup when making their Maple Pecan Porter.
Although I doubt anyone along the lines of Budweiser
will ever be brewing with pure maple, there are over
2,000 microbreweries in the country, so if you have one
near your sugaring operation, see if they want to use
your syrup for a seasonal special. Maple beers seem to
be especially popular during the autumn when maple

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FIGURE 11.23. Mark VanGlad of Tundra Brewery produces a MaPale Ale with the maple syrup, grains, and hops grown on his farm in the Catskills. Because he
produces 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 WESSEL

leaves are at their peak colors; they should become even

more popular in March when the sap is flowing
throughout the Northeast.

Birch Beer
Although many of us have probably heard of birch beer,
few people actually know what it is. Historically, the
sap from black birch (Betula lenta) trees was used to
produce a non-alcoholic, carbonated beverage similar
to root beer. There were also some regions that created
alcoholic versions of the product, but this was the exception rather than the norm. The vast majority of birch
beer on the market today uses artificial flavoring and
sweeteners to create a carbonated soda with a unique
flavor reminiscent of wintergreen. Some manufacturers
claim that they use birch oil that has been distilled from
the sap of birch trees, though this seems highly unlikely.

I suspect most of the flavoring agents are chemically

synthesized or come from the bark and other parts of
the tree rather than the sap.
The big opportunity that I see with birch beer is using
birch sap to replace water in regular beer recipes. Although there is confusion over what birch beer actually
is, the name is common enough that it invokes peoples
curiosity. Using clear, fresh birch sap from the beginning
of the season in lieu of water allows brewers to create
a unique birch beer that has excellent marketing appeal. The birch sap probably wont change the flavor of
whatever beer is made with it, but since birch sap is a
spring tonic full of minerals and nutrients, it does make
the beer a bit healthier than your standard beer and
provides an excellent marketing angle. The Lake Placid
Pub & Brewery used 360 gallons of our birch sap to create a birch beer in 2013; it was very successful, and they
are already looking forward to doing it again next year.

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The Sugarmakers Companion

Birch Wine
There are several companies throughout the world using
birch sap as one of the main ingredients in wines. One of
these is Sapworld, which is owned and operated by Craig
Lewis in Newfoundland. In addition to other birchderived products, he has developed and copyrighted
Springwine, aka Lady of the Woods. Its marketing appeal is based on the fact that he uses birch sap from the
pristine forests of Newfoundland that is full of minerals
and nutrients. Sugar is added to the birch sap until the
sugar content is high enough for fermenting into wine.
According to their marketing materials, this wine...
shows clear and bright in the glass; provides a delicate
fragrance of soft apple and pear; sits well in the mouth
with pleasant acids balancing the evident fruit sugars;
persistent flavors of ripe pear, Mandarin orange, and
Delicious apple blend harmoniously and without bitterness. This certainly sounds good, and with the natural
origin of birch trees, it makes for a winning combination.
Boreal Bounty is another company from the Manitoba
region that specializes in birch wine and other boreal forest products. Started in 2005 by Doug Eryou in conjunction with the D. D. Leobard Winery of Winnipeg, they
developed a wine called Tansi derived from birch sap. In
addition to their standard birch sap wine, they also have a
wide range of products that use the extracts of other boreal trees and plants. Their list of wines includes birch sap
mixed with cherry, lingonberry, sea buckthorn, cranberry,
and Saskatoon. They also utilize the sap of boxelders
the only species of maple growing in Manitoba.

FIGURE 11.24. An assortment of birch wines with boreal fruit flavors. PHOTO
COURTESY OF FRANK FIEBER

Maple Wine
While touring different sugarbushes in Quebec a few
years ago I met Alberto Milan, the owner of a Canadian
wine company. This was during the height of the recession when many businesses were suffering, yet Albertos
sales were soaring. He provided us with a brilliant rationale for why he decided to focus on using maple for wine
rather than as a pancake topping. According to Alberto,
When the economy is good, people have lots of money
and they like to celebrate and drink alcohol . . . and when
the economy is bad, people are upset and like to drown

FIGURE 11.25. Venerable

is a great name for a maple
wineit has connotations of
strength and makes great
use of the French word for
maple: erable. PHOTO COURTESY

FIGURE 11.26. Maple ice wines are

extremely sweet and do make an excellent after-dinner drink. People expect
ice wines to be sweet, so marketing a
maple version makes sense, as everyone
associates maple with being sweet. PHOTO

OF ALDO NEYRA

COURTESY OF ALDO NEYRA

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FIGURE 11.27. Two of the most popular mead varieties produced with maple
syrup by the Saphouse Meadery in New Hampshire. PHOTO COURTESY OF CRIS DOW

their sorrows by drinking alcohol. So no matter what

happens with the economy, the sale of alcoholic beverages continues to grow. Sales have been particularly
strong in China and are now expanding into the US
market through a distributor under the name of Maple
Connoisseur. His company produces a table wine, sparkling wine, and ice wine all made with pure maple syrup.
The process involves diluting the syrup with water and
then starting the fermentation process until most of the
sugar is consumed by yeast. Venerable is the table wine
and is not nearly as sweet as you would imagine it to be,
though the ice wine definitely packs a punch.

Maple Mead
I was first introduced to maple mead by Jeff Moore, a seventh-generation sugarmaker from Windswept Maples
Farm in Loudon, New Hampshire. He went to Paul
Smiths College in the Adirondacks and spent a lot of his
free time in the spring helping at our sugaring operation in
Lake Placid. Ive gotten to know Jeff and the Moore family
well over the years; my wife and I visited their farm during
our honeymoon in summer 2011. As a wedding gift, they
gave us a couple of bottles of mead that was produced
from their maple syrup by the Sap House Meadery in
Center Ossippee, New Hampshire. We were both greatly
impressed with the quality of the mead, so I reached
out to the owners to learn more about their company.

215

Sap House Meadery was started in 2010 by two cousins, Ash Fischbein and Matt Trahan. Both worked in the
restaurant business for many years, but had grown tired of
cooking and wanted to do something different. Since they
were both avid homebrewers, they decided to start making wine with local ingredients from their region. There
arent any grapes in New Hampshire, but there is certainly
a lot of maple syrup! After visiting 35 sugarhouses all over
the state, they were especially impressed with the operation at Windswept Maples and started to get their syrup
exclusively from them. Most of their meads are not strictly
made with maple syrup, but rather use a blend of maple
syrup with honeythis is known as an acerglyn. Many
people expect maple mead to be excessively sweet, and
depending on how it is made, it certainly can be. However, by properly controlling the sugar concentration and
fermentation, it is possible to make maple-syrup-based
meads that are relatively dry or semi-sweet. After years
of experimentation, Ash told me he found the perfect
balance that seems to work for them. They have already
won awards for their signature Sugar Maple mead at
the International Wine Festival in the Finger Lakes of
New York. They also produce a variety of other meads
utilizing local ingredients, including their Hopped
Blueberry Maple, Blackberry Maple, and Peach Maple.
Meaderies have been gaining in popularity in recent
years. Ash told me that when they started, there were
only 35 meaderies in the country and 2 in New England. In the past two years, 6 more meaderies opened in
New England and there are now over 100 in the United
States. Mead is considered other wine by the federal
government, and there are some hassles in dealing with
the bureaucracy of creating and selling alcoholic beverages. However, if you are willing to go through all the
red tape, there are excellent opportunities in turning
some of your maple syrup into another valuable drink.

Maple Liquors and Spirits

Maple syrup can be distilled into hard alcohols or can be
added to finished products as a flavoring agent. Craft distilleries are becoming increasingly popular as many states
enact legislation that supports these operations, rather
than forbidding them as they have in the past. Since maple

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J Final Thoughts:

Buying and Selling

Value-Added Products

FIGURE 11.28. Cabin Fever whiskey uses pure maple syrup to provide a
unique marketing angle and superb flavor. PHOTO BY NANCIE BATTAGLIA

syrup is so expensive, it makes much more sense to use it

as a flavoring agent rather than simply as a source of sugar
for distillation purposes. However, with the increasing
amount of off-flavored, commercial-grade syrups being
produced at the end of the season these days, I suspect that
this could change. Thanks to advances in vacuum tubing
and spout designs, many sugarmakers are still gathering
plenty of sap at the end of the season when the syrup being
produced is no longer fit for human consumption. This
type of syrup is perfect for distilling into vodkas and other
spirits, since none of the off-flavor will come through in
the finished product. You can then add some high-quality
syrup for flavoring to have a 100 percent pure maple spirit.
Crown Royal recently came out with a maple finished whiskey. The advertising and label on the bottle
are very deceptive, leading people to believe that it
contains pure maple. In actuality, this is simply a Crown
Royal whiskey with natural maple flavors added at the
end of the process. The whiskey has gotten a lot of attention and could have done a lot to promote pure maple,
but unfortunately it turned out to be just another score
for artificial flavoring. Interestingly enough, the parent
company of Crown Royal also recently bought out
Cabin Fever, a small company in New Hampshire that
is making maple-flavored whiskey with pure, Grade B
maple syrup. What started as a small hobby in the Robillard family garage is now a very successful business that
is being marketed throughout the world by Diageo.

Making and marketing value-added products is a lot different from producing maple syrup. It is certainly not
for everyone! However, even if you dont have the time,
interest, or desire to make your own value-added maple
products, dont let that stop you from selling them. There
are many sugarmakers and companies that offer (at
wholesale prices) a variety of maple products to sugarmakers who then sell them in their own retail markets.
The common ones include maple sugar, cream, and
candy, but there are many more. You can get these with
just a generic label on the package, with your own private
label, or in completely unmarked boxes. You can then
add your own label or unique packaging and mark up the
price for retail sales. Selling these products will also help
draw in customers who wish to purchase the value-added
products and pick up some of your syrup in the process.
Buy our Pure Maple Products
and Gourmet Foods

Are you interested in

expanding your product line?
The following products are available from
our licensed kitchen:
Hot Maple Mustard
Sweet Maple Mustard
Granulated Maple Sugar
Maple Cotton Candy Mix
Maple Garlic Pepper
Maple Barbeque Sauce

Traditional and Flavored Maple

Spread (Maple Cream) - Cinnamon
Raspberry, Robust
Coated Molded Maple Sugar (Candy)
Hot Maple Pepper Jelly
Sweet Maple Pepper Jelly

Buy it in bulk or in consumer containers packaged without labels

so you can put on your own label.

Merle Maple Farm, 1884 Route 98, Attica, NY 14011

Phone: 585-535-7136, email: lyleanddottie@merlemaple.com

Visit us on the web,

www.merlemaple.com

FIGURE 11.29. This advertisement from Merle Maple Farms shows some
of the many products that you could have produced for you under a private
label. There are several sugaring operations that have expanded their offerings in recent years to supply the growing markets for value-added maple
products. IMAGE COURTESY OF KATE ZIEHM