My sap tastes like sweet water and is crystal clear. I filled up 4 corny kegs and buried them in the snow to keep it preserved until brew day. I don't expect much of the maple flavor to carry over to the finished beer. I think the extra sugar will ferment out to make the beer dryer. Seems like a fun thing to try though. Cheers!

I brewed a maple sap double IPA on April 2, using sap for the mash and sparge water. The OG was higher than expected at 1.083 but the volume was off and I left a lot of wort, trub and hops in the kettle. It finished at 1.016, which is on the sweet side, but it balances the bitterness (Beersmith says 118 IBU). It is dangerously drinkable for an 8.8% ABV beer. I plan on trying this again next year, but I need a session beer on tap at the same time! Actually, that would be a good way to grow up some healthy yeast.

Anywho, I put up a video of the brew day on MoreBeer's site:

http://morebeer.ning.com/video/maple-iipa

Nice video! Love the system and process and although I loved the music, it was hard to hear your commentary behind it. Would love to try the beer though. Brew on!

I have a few different experiences with maple beer:

Back in college, I brewed an extract beer with sap. I don't know what the gravities were, and back then all of my beers tasted like buttery cardboard, so I can't say if it tasted like maple. My buddies and I also used to drop shots of syrup into our Long Trail. Although that had a definite maple flavor, it was way too sweet.

This spring, I did an all-grain märzen with sap. It was early in the season, so the sap was bright, clear and clean tasting, and it hardly had any flavor. The sap's gravity was 1.010, and the beer ended up coming out with just a slight hint of maple flavor and no sweetness.

In April, the guy I got the sap from back in March called me and said he had a bunch of partially boiled sap that he didn't want to finish boiling for syrup. That stuff was brownish in color and had noticeable maple, sweet, and bitter flavors. It was from much later in the season and the guy told me it would make grade b syrup, versus the sap I got back in March, which would have made vermont fancy grade. That sap's gravity was 1.030, and the beer came out almost 8% abv with a really prevalent maple flavor and some sweetness, but it was still good. Nothing like dropping shots of syrup into beers, though.

I think if you wanted to try it and can't get sap, try adding a pint of syrup to your mash or boil. There would probably be a noticeable difference depending on what grade you use and when you add it.