Swedish Gingerbread, Indian Prices & Ginger Real Ales

I do enjoy watching foreign language dramas with subtitles on TV. My Saturday evenings are not complete without a weekly dose of crime from Italy or France or, as happens most weeks, Scandinavia (The Killing, The Bridge, Borgen & Wallander come to mind). According to The Observer, it is not only Scandinavian drama which is proving popular with the British. The UK shopping delivery service Ocado has launched a Scandinavian Christmas Shop and one of its top sellers is Nyåkers Pepparkakor. This Swedish gingerbread biscuit has seen sales jump by 73% over the last three weeks.

Nyåkers Pepparkakor is the oldest gingerbread biscuit bakery in Sweden. Pepparkakor is the Swedish word for gingerbread. The biscuits have been produced for seventy-odd years and are still made to the original recipe. They are very popular in the USA (and now the UK it seems).

This coming Friday (Nov 30th) and Saturday (Dec 1st) will see the Fall to Winter Fest in Boston. This event, organised by Drink Craft Beer, will feature offerings from 25 New England craft brewers and cider makers (sounds like the CAMRA beer festivals in the UK). The official festival beer is from Peak Organic and has the rather unusual name "Nut Your Average Ginger". This is a harvest brown ale brewed with malt, hops, honey, chestnut puree and Massachusetts-grown ginger from Old Friends Farm.

If you do go to the Fest have a look for a gingerbread stout called Merry Mischief from the Boston Beer Company and a pale ale with honey and ginger called Honey Gingah Pale Ale from the Cody Brewing Company. Let me know your views on these beers.

Old Friends Farm is an organic farm in Amherst, Massachusetts. It grows a ginger variety from the Biker Dude Organic Ginger Farm in Pahoa, Hawaii. Because the climate in the US Northeast is not as good as Hawaii, the ginger is harvested at five to six months. This results in young and tender ginger which is perishable. Fortunately, it can be frozen.

The Hindu Business Line reports that the price of ginger in India is rapidly increasing because demand is exceeding supply now that winter is here. Ginger consumption during winter in India is always high as people attempt to protect themselves from the cold and damp. And demand will continue to exceed supply as many farmers, disappointed with the low prices in recent years, have decided not to grow ginger in the new season. I'm sure that this is a decision they are now bitterly regretting.

When I started reading the article I wondered why India doesn't import ginger to cover the shortfall. According to the article the existing import duty on ginger still makes Indian ginger, already an expensive commodity on the world markets, the cheaper option. So old ginger stock is being released to the local markets.

A standard comparison measure of world commodity prices is the concept of price parity. This benchmark price is calculated by taking an average of prices over a period of time. For example, the USA uses a period of ten years. If we assume that India uses the same period as the USA, its ginger price parity is an average of the price of ginger over the previous ten years. India's current ginger price parity is the highest of all the ginger-producing countries.

Ginger Beer, Ginger-Spiced Beer, Ginger Lager & Ginger Cider

If you think that his post seems like a drinks special, believe me, it is unintentional. There has just been a lot of drink-related activity recently.

The Brew Star brewery from Morpeth in Northumberland recently conducted a trial brew of Ginger & Fig Porter. No news yet on whether it will make a reappearance.

Gosling Brothers has launched its Stormy Ginger Beer on the UK on-trade market to create the definitive Dark ‘n Stormy, Bermuda’s official national drink. So next time you go to the pub you can ask for the real thing. And if the landlord doesn't have it, threaten to take your custom elsewhere! (Source: imbibe.com)

If you live in New Zealand you'll be pleased to hear the latest news about Monteith's Brewery Company. Stuff reports that the Greymouth brewery has re-opened following a one year, $4 million refurbishment. Once the new bottling plant is up and running, production of a new beer, an alcoholic ginger beer, will commence.

The Times of Oman reports that Caribou Coffee, a leading US coffee chain, has launched three new iced teas in Oman with the most popular among Omanis being Lemon Ginger Pomegranate. That doesn't come as a surprise as ginger is widely used in the country.

A new beer has been launched by Jack's Abby Brewing from Massachusetts - Ginger & Juice. This lager beer is brewed with pureed ginger, grapefruit juice and peel, buckwheat and hops. This isn't the only ginger and grapefruit lager that I've found. Shiner Ruby Redbird, from the Spoetzl Brewery in Texas, uses red grapefruit.

Okanagan Premium Cider from British Columbia in Canada has added an innovative new flavour to its popular range, according to the Kelowna Capital News. The new flavour is Ginger Apple and it contains locally grown apples. I imagine that the ginger is imported.

I've found that ginger beers can have quirky names just like real ales. The latest I have encountered is Pigs Arse Chilli Ginger Beer from Irish Murphy in Brisbane. I know absolutely nothing about this beer; can someone help?

And finally, what do you make of this article in IOL? Hakanoa, the ginger beer maker from Auckland in New Zealand, ran an advertising campaign which referred to red-haired children as "ginger spawn". The press release accompanying the campaign said: "They say children are a blessing, but it's fair to say no parent sets out wanting a ginger child". It continued: "So ginger-beer maker Hakanoa has given those parents unfortunate enough to be cursed with ginger children the opportunity to swap them for something they will want". The campaign caused outrage. But Hakanoa responded a couple of days ago on Facebook by stating that the company did not create the ad. It was created by ginger-haired parents of ginger-haired children. These parents, who work in advertising, were concerned at the bullying their children suffered. Hakanoa and The Little Grocer (where you could collect the ginger beer) agreed to front the ad as a way of raising the issue. What do you think of it? Has it worked?

Boston Cooler, Ginger Smoothie & Waxed Ginger Beer

For the last few weeks, much of the USA has been enduring extremely high temperatures. I've just been reading that the temperature in Detroit has ranged from 36°C to 39°C and that an ideal way of staying cool is to drink a Boston cooler. No, I don't know what one is either but according to Wikipedia it is a mixture of vanilla ice cream and Vernors Ginger Ale. Despite the name, the drink was invented in Detroit and was known as far back as the 1880s. Have a go yourself with whatever you can lay your hands on (ginger ale, ginger beer, ginger wine etc) and let me know the result.

Last year, Q Drinks, the New York-based maker of natural sodas, launched a ginger ale called Q Ginger. I'm sure that our Spanish readers will be pleased to learn that the ginger ale is now available in Spain, according to Alimarket (and if my Google translation is correct).

I'm always interested to see how far north the Americans will attempt to grow ginger. The Enterprise, from Brockton in Massachusetts, mentions that Marta MacFarland is experimenting with ginger at her organic Rise and Shine Farm in the nearby town of Marshfield. I shall try to find out how the experiment is progressing.

Wales Online reported that the incessant rain which has fallen on the UK for what seems like months and months and months failed to deter visitors to the Cardiff International Food and Drink Festival 2012. One stall holder pleased with the event was Roger Schmid of the Septimus Spyder Medieval Brewhouse from Burton-on-Trent who sold a range of soft drinks including his ginger beer. Interestingly, the company produce a ginger beer, a ginger beer special reserve and a sloe ginger beer in waxed bottles, and a ginger beer special reserve in a stoneware crock.

Fastmoving introduced me to a type of product which I never knew existed - ginger beer smoothie. Wild Island (a South African brand from the Ceres Beverage Company) makes a range of dairy fruit mix smoothies and it has just added Ginger Beer Smoothie. Sounds interesting.

The Centre for Rural Technology in Nepal has published some images of ginger drying in the sun. I've also found some great images of ginger in Jyoti Pathak's Taste of Nepal blog.

Still in Nepal and the Himalayan Times has reported on some good news for Nepali ginger farmers. Ginger exports for the first ten months of the current fiscal year (mid May) have reached Rs 323.2 million compared to RS 199.4 million for the same period in the last fiscal year. But the latest figure must be put into perspective as the export value for the year before (2009-10) was RS 302.6 million. The implication is that last year must be treated as an unfortunate blip caused , I believe, by a better than expected harvest in India, Nepal's principal export market.

I shall finish by introducing Mauritius, a relatively small member of the ginger producing community. A year ago the Minister of Agro Industry and Food Security warned that 70 percent of the products consumed by Mauritians are imported and that is a risky situation to be in. The country is now just over halfway through a seven year plan to increase annual ginger production from 1300 tonnes to 2500 tonnes. Last year's interim production target aimed to meet 80 percent of local consumption. The increase in production has been made possible by the micropropagation of imported ginger material. I must remember to come back to this in 2015 to see if the plan has been achieved.