Ginger ale and ginger beer

Cafe Society
1

I love them all and am always looking for a new one to try. My favorite is Fever Tree. Our local Giant Eagle markets have many varieties in two different isles, mixers and soft drinks. I recently spotted ginger beer in the Goya section. My experience with Goya products is that they are fairly ordinary. NOT THE GINGER BEER!

Holy Cow is it intense. It has capsaicin added but also has a very high level of carbonation that does not seem apparent until you swallow. S P E W ! I can barely control it by holding it in my mouth for a second instead of chugging it.

2

My late father made his own ginger beer - once.

First take a load of ginger root that a ‘friend’ gives you and shred it up. When you can go back into the kitchen, boil it up with some sugar. When it’s cooled, add yeast and bottle it.

This is where Father went wrong. You need to let the gas from the fermentation escape - he left the sealed bottles in a kitchen cupboard with predictable results. Fortunately, no one was injured in the explosion, but it sure made a hell of a mess.

3

LOL! I’m not sure what you’d call that beverage if it actually fermented properly, but “ginger beer”, like “ginger ale”, is a soft drink (the “beer” version usually being more intensely gingeriffic).

4

Ginger beer is fermented. I’ve made some at home and put it in 2 liter bottles. I made sure to crack the bottles open once a day. Leave it for as long as it has as many bubbles as you like.

5

I’m more a fan of root beers, but sometimes try the ginger ales. Latest I’ve tried is Virgil’s, bought at a Sprouts grocery. It’s decent.

That is a crime against ginger! Ginger should be spicy on its own, without needing a capsaicin adulterant.

6

I would like to point out that the Ginger Beer, although fermented, is not particularly alcoholic.

7

We have a soda shop near by and they have a huge selection of ginger ale/beer from around the country. My favorite by far is Blenheim Old#3 Red Cap.
Also a fan of Reed’s and Cock-N-Bull.

8

The best ginger beer I’ve ever had is AJ Stephans. Good luck finding it, though. Production seems to be extremely spotty.

9

I absolutely love Blenheim, specifically the “cough in every sip” version. It’s a shame it’s so hard to get here in Canada, though.

10

Stoney or GTFO. No other commercial ginger beer/ale I’ve tasted can hold a candle to it. Bundaberg came the closest, but it’s no Stoney.

11

Vernor’s Ginger Ale back when it was sweetened with stevia was pretty good. But that was 40ish years ago. Among HFCS sweetened varieties today, it’s the most desirable IMHO

12

Traditionally-made ginger beer is slightly alcoholic, but much less than what’s usually called “beer”. When you’re setting out to make an alcoholic beverage, you usually let whatever you’re fermenting keep going, until the alcohol kills off the yeast. This produces a lot of carbon dioxide, far more than what you’d want to just make the drink fizzy, so for making alcoholic drinks, you need some way for them to vent excess gas.

If the goal is a soft(ish) drink, then you let it ferment until it has the amount of fizziness you want, and then either drink it before it ferments any further, or do something else (like heat) to kill off the yeast and stop further fermentation.

And if you want a completely non-alcoholic drink, like modern pop, then you don’t ferment it at all, and just add carbon dioxide from some other source.

13

A high school friend of mine also only made ginger beer once. But he didn’t have such a spectacular result! His just tasted horrible. It put me off ginger beer for life.

It was a lot bitier then, too. I loved it.

14

Another Blenheim lover here. I first discovered it oddly enough in a Restoration Hardware store in San Diego in the late 90s. It’s hard to find in the San Jose area but Total Wine and More has it from time to time. Cock n’ Bull Ginger Beer is a reasonable substitute.

15

If you get a chance, you could try HeySong’s Sarsaparilla, Watson’s Sarsae, or Bundaberg’s ginger beer or root beer. Personally, I like the HeySong best.