Recently I have a number of guests inquire about and are intrigued over ginger beer. I have had a few ask me what the alcohol percentage is or why I would ever want to mix beer and rum. After explaining that similar to root beer, ginger beer has no alcohol and is only a carbonated soda, I will usually get the “well what is in it exactly” question. Instead of picking up the can of Goslings and reading off the ingredients verbatim, I give the guest a simple recipe for ginger beer that I have used with great success now at two establishments. I first came across it through Jeffrey Morgenthaler’s blog, but I like to mess with his recipe and tweak my ginger beer to be a little spicier or on the sweeter side, depending what type of cocktails I will be making with that batch. To make you will need a juicer, some champagne yeast and some flip top bottles (Great Lakes growlers work really good).
Morgenthaler’s recipe is as follows:
1 ounce ginger juice
2 ounces finely strained lemon juice
3 ounces 1:1 simple syrup
10 ounces warm water
25-30 granulates of champagne yeast
Combine all of the ingredients in a flip top bottle, give one shake, and let sit in a warm dark room for 24-48 hrs. Refrigerate to stop the yeast from fermenting.
Morgenthaler’s recipe says no less than 48hrs, but I have had some batches explode on opening, so I always let the yeast activate for about 30 hours. Again, you can mess with the amounts depending on how spicy you like it. I like to use almost equal parts ginger juice and lemon juice.
When juicing ginger, make sure you chop it down into small hale size chunks to make things easier on the juicer and make sure you continually clear the pulp off of the blade after each feed to cut back on any pressure building up inside the juicer.
Well, try to brew some ginger beer at home then sit back and enjoy a Dark n’ Stormy, Moscow Mule, or my current favorite – The Pimm’s Cup.
Pimm’s Cup
1/4 oz fresh lime juice
1/4 oz fresh lemon juice
1/4 oz 2:1 simple syrup
2 oz Pimm’s #1
4-5 oz Homemade ginger beer.
Slice of Cucumber
Build the ingredients over ice, give it a nice stir for about 10-15 seconds and garnish with a slice of Cucumber and some strawberries if you got some.
Great information Mike. A great trick I picked up to make ginger beer real spicy is to add about 10 red pepper flakes to each bottle – puts a little heat behind the ginger.