Ginger (Real) Ale

[dave_witt]

Hey guys,

I'm planning on my next batch of beer, this time for the summer, and I'd like to try a ginger ale. Does anyone have any recipes for a real ginger ale, lighter bodied, about 4-5% ABV, possibly a weizen? I'd prefer to do this as an extract with added specialty grains, but if necessary I'd attempt my first full grain brew.

 

[smertz001]

The only Ginger Ale I've done is the non-alcoholic kind with ginger, honey, water and yeast to carbonate... Ready in 48 hours!

But I wouldn't mind seeing a Ginger Beer, I've had one or two and they are quite delicious, although I always crave sushi after wards (=

 

[Zem]

So I don't know a ton about beers but I'm pretty experienced at making alcoholic ginger things, some that are even "beers".

I assume you've got a few beers under your belt already?
My advice is to take a recipe along those lines that you like already and add ginger to it as an adjunct.
My favorite way to add ginger is to juice it, I reserve the liquid and put the pulp in the boil to pull out anything it's got left. I add the juice right around pitch, not boiling saves more of the aromatics (IMHO). However this is not absolutely necessary to make a good brew, if you don't want to juice just chop it up and throw it into your boil. I think 1-3 oz /gal is what normal people might use, in my high intensity brew I add 1 lb / gallon.

Oh-- also I think ginger goes nicely with cascade dry hopping, make sure you use fresh not pellet hops for this though. Just my .02

Good luck

/wolfie

 

[xopher425]

Funny you should mention this

I've been thinking about making this myself. I've seen the non-alcoholic ginger ales that smertz001 mentioned, and while it sounds good, I wanted something more. Doing more research got me this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ginger_beer

Ginger beer is brewed, up to 11% alcohol. It's actually made with a SCOBY (a symbiotic colony of bacteria and yeast) called a ginger beer plant, not just fermented with yeast. The ginger beer plant can be purchased (although some of the companies are just selling yeast cakes, not actual scobys.) I also found a Yahoo group who's member might send you and extra plant.

There are several variations I've found, from the simple fizzy ginger ale, to adding rum to canned ginger ale, but this sounds like what we were looking for: http://down---to---earth.blogspot.com/2012/01/making-ginger-beer-from-scratch.html

 

[dave_witt]

Thanks, Xopher, for the info. I had no idea that was the original history of ginger ale. What I was thinking of, though, is more along the lines of a flavored ale, like Wolfie was discussing--this is something I'd be making in 5 gallon batches, and eventually kegging. (Also, I've had horrible luck with sourdough, so this might not be a good idea for me. ;-))

 

[Zem]

You can read my attempts here and here. It's just a guideline, these are my first shots at making anything even remotely a beer, however they grow on you and are light, crisp, not overly complicated, and very easy to drink on a hot day. As a side note, some friends of mine swear that this brew is hangover proof. We attribute it to the insane amount of ginger.

You are probably best to look up some beer recipes that are to your taste and comfort level and attempt to modify them. Looking forward to the brew log.

Good luck

/wolfie

 

[smertz001]

Medsen has a Ginger Beer Metheglin here where he's using a Kombucha SCOBY.

Might want to give that a read as well. I know I learned more about Kombucha and SCOBY because of it (especially since I didn't know what either was until I read it!)

 

[akueck]

I've had a very good Lemon Ginger ale (the alcoholic kind). Quite a good combo and very refreshing. Use high carbonation to really kick up the ginger aromatics into your face.

 

[Chevette Girl]

Haven't gotten to a real beer yet, but when I did my sparkling ginger hydromel, I used a pound of ginger chopped in the blender and then steeped in my gallon of boiling water for half an hour or so (measure out gallon of water into pot, bring to boil, turn off heat, add ginger, cover, go sanitize things or measure out honey), this gave enough ginger flavour and heat to make it close in flavour and heat level to the kind of non-alcoholic Jamaican ginger "beer" I can get in the grocery store. I think if I were to make a real beer I'd probably cut that amount to half a pound per gallon to make it nice and gingery but still quaffable... but then, I really like ginger. Oh, and I have found that ginger's heat does degrade over time.