Randy Noble has bled for birch beer. About 50 years ago, Noble and a friend followed a recipe for the beverage — made from the sap and branches of the black birch tree — in a well-worn Euell Gibbons ...

When I became a folklorist, writing for Dr. Alfred Shoemaker’s Pennsylvania Folklife magazine, I naturally relied on my native background, my Bieber ancestors farmed in the Oley Hills of Rockland ...

Last week I tagged along with a man in Weare who’s tapping black birch trees for their sap. While its syrup is not as sweet as maple syrup, it can be an unexpected and tasty ingredient in home-brewed ...

Pennsylvania's quintessential cuisine includes Philly-style water ice, gooey layered stromboli, saucy tomato pie, and some of the best pretzels in the U.S. However, there's another state staple that ...

As a historian I was eager when I came across early local Pennsylvania maps which gave the locations of Birch oil distilleries, a pioneer occupation among PA Dutch farmers. But growing up on wooded ...

Sweet birch, also called black or cherry birch (B. lenta), is another native birch, one that is rarely used by landscapers despite the fact that it is a handsome tree, particularly when it is young ...