The brewers stood under the Garry oak, looking a bit curious, a bit amused. Questions? They had a few. Is the shoot of a salmonberry edible? What does a spruce tip taste like?
Brewmasters Don Webb and Jason Yerger were game. Here comes the leaf of an Indian plum into their mouths.
They chewed on a licorice fern as if it were gum.
The needle from a Douglas fir? “It tastes like a peach, surprisingly,” said Yerger, brewer of Ghostfish Brewing Company in Seattle’s Sodo District.
In search of inspiration, dozens of local brewers have been undertaking an exercise of a most unusual order.