Etymology

spruce beer

Today it means: A kind of beer which is flavored with parts of the spruce tree. Full definition →

German Sprossenbier
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The story

  1. German · derived fromSprossenbier
  2. English todayspruce beer

German Sprossenbier. Sprosse (“sprout, shoot”) was changed into spruce because the beer came from Prussia, or because it was made from the sprouts of the spruce.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.