Hobbit Ginger Beer, Snoop Partnership, Dutch Exports & Tissue Culture

Are you a fan of the Lord of the Rings? Or hobbits? Or Tolkien? If you are and you like your ginger beer then you will be interested in this. The Good George brewery in Waikato has been selected to brew a non-alcoholic ginger beer for the Green Dragon in Hobbiton. But the Green Dragon isn't real, I hear you say. Well, it is now. In the Lord of the Rings trilogy the Green Dragon pub was actually only the front, the rest didn't exist. And during the final instalment it was burned to the ground (I don't remember that!). But the Green Dragon has now been rebuilt as a real pub for the forthcoming The Hobbit film trilogy. Unfortunately, the pub is only open to those on the Hobbiton tour. (Source: Waikato Times).

Gladstone Hall, the former home of Australian ginger beer magnate William Starkey, is now on the market. If you have at least $2.4 million and fancy living in the Sydney suburb of Dulwich Hill, you can find more information here. But I am more interested in the ginger beer itself. Starkey started brewing ginger beer in Sydney in 1838 and became so successful that he eventually had the largest ginger beer factory in the southern hemisphere. I can't seem to find anything else about Starkey's ginger beer. Can anyone help?

The Naples Beach Brewery in south Florida recently received state clearance to commercially produce alcoholic beverages. One of its new beers is a mango ginger Belgian ale. Sounds very American.

A press release has announced details of a partnership between the US rapper Snoop Lion (apparently he is sometimes known as Snoop Dogg) and Reed's Ginger Brew to raise awareness of Snoop's Mind Gardens Project in Jamaica. The project's aim is to establish organic community gardens capable of producing fresh fruit and vegetables for school-aged children. Reed's founder Chris Reed has said that he wants to give something back to Jamaica as his company's successful drinks are based on traditional Jamaican-style ginger beers.

just-food has reported on the rising demand from China for traditional English cheeses including the increasing popular dessert cheeses such as white stilton with mango and ginger. It is quite likely that the ginger in these blended cheeses came from China in the first place.

I've just been reading some interesting statistics from the Centre for the Promotion of Imports, an agency of the Netherlands Ministry of Foreign Affairs and known by the Dutch acronym CBI. In 2010, the Netherlands accounted for 35% of all ginger imports into the EU and was the largest EU importer. Again in 2010, 65% of total ginger exports from the EU came from the Netherlands. Some of these Dutch re-exports contributed 6.8% of total British ginger imports.

So why the Netherlands? Towards the end of the 16th century Dutch traders started dealing in spices from the East. Soon after, the Dutch East India Company was formed and this lasted for nearly two hundred years. By then the Dutch spice trade, including ginger, was so well established that it continues to this day. It may seem incredible but last year the Netherlands was the world's third biggest exporter of ginger behind China and Nigeria.

The idea of the EU exporting ginger sounds strange, doesn't it? How can a region which doesn't grow ginger (or at least not commercially) actually export it? The answer is, I don't know. I can only speculate that it could be some sort of added-value or preferential rate. Can anyone enlighten me?

just-drinks has reported a fall in the losses of Castle Brands, the New York-based spirits and wine group. A contributory factor in this improvement is the rise in sales of Gosling's Stormy Ginger Beer, up 45.5% to 74,959 cases in the last quarter. You can always rely on ginger!

A new ginger breeding facility has just opened in the Malaysian state of Sabah, according to the Borneo Post. It uses in-vitro technology to produce 500 plantlets from one parent ginger plant in a process which takes six months. It is hoped that production of disease-free stock will help Sabah meet its demand for 24,000 kg a month.

A press release on PRWeb has announced the forthcoming launch of a loose leaf ginger tea blend in time for Christmas. The Tea Spot, from Boulder in Colorado, has created a blend featuring smoked black tea from China and ginger tea from Honduras. It sounds like the ideal drink for elevenses.

Independence Ginger Tea, Celebrity Chefs & Welcome Price Rise

The Retail Gazette carried an interesting article on how UK supermarkets are boosting their sales and profits by working in partnership with a celebrity chef or two. In particular, the article mentioned the success at Waitrose following the launch of Delia Smith's recipe for Rhubarb & Ginger Brûlée. Within the first seven days of the launch 14 weeks' worth of rhubarb was sold and the sales of ginger jumped by more than 3000%. Must make a note of that; when I open my shop, find a famous chef.

Good news for ginger lovers in Germany. LWC Michelsen has brought out 18 new jams of which two are ginger & pineapple, and ginger extra. Apparently, Germans prefer jam rather than marmalade at breakfast so these are ideal if you need a bit of a kick first thing in the morning.

Following the recent launch of Adnams Ginger Beer (see post), the brewery has swiftly followed it with another new beer called Flame Runner. This limited edition 3.9% abv pale ale, launched to commemorate the London Olympics, has been brewed with malted barley from Europe, hops from Australasia, and spices from Africa, Asia and America. The brewery describes the beer as having a 'subtle ginger aroma' which I take to mean that it does actually contain ginger.

The Business Standard provided welcome news for Indian ginger farmers when it reported that the price of both bleached and unbleached ginger had risen by about 10% at the spices markets. The rise was attributed to renewed domestic interest and increased export demand coupled with restricted levels of imports. Presumably prices will fall again when imports increase.

The Daily Star yesterday reported that the Bangladesh Tariff Commission Chairman has criticised the business community for raising the prices of essential commodities just before the start of Ramadan next week. He said that ginger is being bought wholesale for Tk37 but sold retail for Tk75. Two weeks ago, Commerce Ministry officials, businessmen and traders agreed to limit profits to no more than ten percent during the month of fasting.

The Fiji Times, like many other news organisations, likes to print extracts from its archives. Recently it reprinted news from July 8th, 1966, which contained a reference to 457 cases of ginger being shipped to New Zealand on the Union Steam Ship company's MV Tofua. I don't know how much ginger this is by weight as the term 'case' does not have a definitive meaning in this context. The same vessel also carried 2912 cases of bananas.

The Jamaica Observer carried a business article about Jamaican Teas Ltd, a company which has a 50 percent share of the local market. Apparently, the company has a plan to produce a 100 percent Jamaican ginger tea to commemorate Jamaica's 50 years of independence. The only possible problem could be the difficulty in acquiring enough local ginger in time for Independence Day on the 6th August.