In an attempt to concoct a preventative against scurvy, Captain James Cook brewed a batch of beer on Resolution Island in Dusky Sound, using rimu branches and leaves on April 1, 1773.
We … began to brew beer from the branches or leaves of a tree, which much resembles the American black-spruce. From the knowledge I had of this tree, and the similarity it bore to the spruce, I judged that, with the addition of inspissated [thickened] juice of wort and molasses, it would make a very wholesome beer, and supply the want of vegetables, which this place did not afford; and the event proved that I was not mistaken.
When the beverage was sampled four days later, Lieutenant Charles Clerke thought it ‘very palatable’ and observed that most of the crew ‘seem[ed] to drink pretty plentifully of it’. The naturalist Anders Sparrman noted that with the addition of a little rum and some brown sugar, ‘this really pleasant, refreshing, and healthy drink … bubbled and tasted rather like champagne’.
Despite these favourable reviews, an attempt by Lion Breweries to recreate Cook’s beer in the 1980s resulted in a brew that some called ‘awful’ and others ‘revolting’. In 2020, Christchurch-based Wigram Brewing produces a spruce beer flavoured with rimu and manuka – ‘a nice malty drop with a slightly smoky character’ that pays homage to Cook without following his recipe exactly.
Joel Polack founded New Zealand’s first commercial brewery at Kororāreka in 1835.
NZ History