Historians will generally go back to the early 1600’s when mapping out the origins of modern beer in Canada. However, long before the Jesuits were brewing up batches of frothy ales, our indigenous people were crafting their own spruce beers.

A source of vitamin C, spruce beer was used by Jacques Cartier in 1536 to save his crew who were dying from scurvy. Other naval explorers added spruce extract (a sort of tea) to their on-board beer to help get vitamin C into the crew’s diet.

Beer fact or fiction?  Who cares? Time to go quench that panda sized thirst… cheers eh!