Birch beer is a beverage, commonly found as a carbonated soft drink made from herbal extracts and birch oil. Birch beer has a very strong wintergreen flavor due to the presence of methyl salicylate in the oil.
Birch essential oil was traditionally extracted from birch bark, but is more frequently now extracted from birch sap. This is then mixed with simple syrup, and is usually colored; regional variations in coloring persist for traditional reasons, but brown, blue, and red variants are all found.
Birch beer is associated with the cuisine of the northeast states of the US, and with Newfoundland in Canada.