A Small Selection Of Ginger-Spiced Beers From Around The World

If you like your ginger and you like your real ale and you like the combination of both then this post is just for you. Ginger-spiced beers and ales are springing up all the time all around the world and this is a small selection of those new beers I've encountered just over the last few days.

Starting at home and last Saturday saw the launch of Adnams Ginger Beer. The brewery uses the pale ale malt wort used for its Broadside offering and then adds ginger, orange peel, lemon and lime zest. At 2.5% abv, this appears to be an extremely quaffable drink.

In the spring, Oxfordshire Ales started producing a limited-edition range of unusual beers. Under the name 'Baby Ox', these beers will be produced at the rate of one a month using rare hops and obscure ingredients and recipes. This month's offering is Ginger Ale Baby Ox, a rich copper ale with a hint of ginger.

Over to Italy. one of my favourite countries, and the Birrificio del Ducato brewery from the village of Roncole Verdi in the province of Parma. Here they produce New Morning, a Belgian Saison with added ginger and coriander. It is amazing how many brewers are producing ginger Saisons now. As a bonus, here are a couple of pieces of trivia: the beer is named after a Bob Dylan song, and the village is the birthplace of Giuseppe Verdi.

Across the pond to Arizona now and a seasonal beer which is making an unseasonal return. San Tan Brewing Company's Winter Warmer will make an appearance on July 14th at the brewery's Christmas in July celebration. This ale is based on a traditional English Old Ale recipe and then spiced with 10lbs of fresh ginger and 10 gallons of Arizona orange blossom honey. Take care if you decide to pop along - it is 9.5% abv.

I may be a little to late with this one. It was early June that the Dogfish Head brewery released Konichiwit, a 4.9% abv Belgian-style wit bier made with fresh ginger root and wasabi. Availability is limited so it may well have already gone.

Up into Canada now and the Garrison Brewing Company in Halifax, Nova Scotia. The brewery is celebrating its 15th anniversary by brewing two special beers. The first is called 15th Anniversary Hops, Mango & Ginger and it is made with real mango, shaved fresh ginger and 15 varieties of hops.

Gingerbread Day, Ginger Honey, Organic Ginger & Pink Beer

Last Tuesday (June 5th) was National Gingerbread Day in the USA. I don't know how long it has been going for but it exists to spread the word about this delicious product. There were many US websites featuring gingerbread recipes on the day but one that took my eye in particular was for Auntie May's Ginger Biscuits. You can see the recipe on Arkansas-based KFSM's 5News website. This is one food commemoration day I wouldn't mind seeing here in the UK. And why stop at gingerbread. Let's have a National Ginger Day where we can celebrate ginger beer, ginger ale, ginger tea and countless other ginger-based products.

Digressing for a moment from the world of ginger, Mahalo tells us that in the US 'each and every day of the year has been designated as a holiday for at least one food, and often there are actually multiple food holidays on the same day'. These food holiday or commemoration days are designated by either the US President or the US Senate. Apparently, today (June 10th) Americans are enjoying Herbs & Spices Day, National Iced Tea Day and National Black Cow Day, and tomorrow they can treat themselves on National German Chocolate Cake Day.

Calgary-based Big Rock Brewery produce an interesting beer called Rye & Ginger. It is a Bavarian-style roggenbier (rye beer) containing up to 60% rye malt. To this Big Rock adds some ginger. And Canada's Metro carried an interesting statistic - 75% of Rye & Ginger sales are to women.

Here's something to look out for in the UK. The New Zealand Honey Company has launched its Manuka Honey & Root Ginger in the Morrisons supermarket chain. According to the Otago Daily Times, the ginger honey is available in about 420 branches which, by my calculation, is roughly 92% of the total. I haven't checked yet but I wouldn't be surprised if my local store is one of the few which doesn't stock it. It looks like a very tasty product so if you manage to buy a jar, let us know what you think of it.

An alarming state of affairs has developed in the Canadian federal territory of Nunavut. The Winnipeg Free Press has reported that the local Inuit population is suffering under the strain of sky-high food prices. A protest was organised for yesterday and a Facebook campaign launched to highlight instances of high prices such as a head of cabbage for $20, a small bag of apples for $15 and a case of ginger ale for $82.

Vintage Nation, this summer's biggest vintage event in the UK, was held yesterday at Brighton Racecourse. The event, in the form of a marketplace, was staged to celebrate sixty years of Britain at its best. Sixty years of fashion, food and music. So what better place than this for Crabbie's to set up shop. Actually, Crabbie's Alcoholic Ginger Beer was one of the main sponsors of the event. The brand hosted a 'village green' with games, ginger cupcakes, ginger beer samples and a Crabbie's bar. I didn't go but I would have been interested to hear Crabbie's musical offering - Mr.B The Gentleman Rhymer. Mr.B, I am informed, performs chap hop which is hip-hop delivered in a Received Pronunciation (or Queen's English) accent.

I've been reading about the emergence of the Northeast Region (NER) of India as the country's organic ginger hub. Although three years old, the gist of the 'Traditional practices of ginger cultivation in Northeast India' paper from the Indian Journal of Traditional Knowledge is, I assume, still valid today. The ginger-producing states in the NER include Arunachal Pradesh, Assam, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Tripura and Sikkim, and farmers here still practice traditional methods of cultivation which rely on organic inputs. The region, which produces nearly three-quarters of India's total ginger production, benefits by its impressively large range of ginger cultivars. I'm not clear what the determining factors are when it comes to selecting which varieties to grow; it could be micro-climate, disease resistance, cultural, historical or a number of other reasons. Anyway, have a read yourself - it's quite interesting.

Houston's CultureMap has introduced me to the Buffalo Bayou Brewing Company, a brewery committed to experimental beers. And its latest beer seems to epitomise the experimental nature of the brewery. I'm not entirely sure what it is called (Summer, I think) but it is made from Belgian witbier yeast, hibiscus flower, ginger, coriander and orange peel. What sets this beer apart from other unusual beers is that it has a pink colour. Yes, pink! The beer has the catchy tagline "Real Dudes Drink Pink".

The Hairy Bikers, No Ginger Beer, Assam Ginger & American Kombucha

I've been watching The Hairy Bikers' Bakeation series on BBC2 each Tuesday. If you are not familiar with this wonderful programme, Simon King and Dave Myers are spending four months riding 5000 miles on their motorbikes across Europe introducing us to the best of traditional baking, both savoury and sweet. I knew that I was going to enjoy last week's episode in particular as the bikers were scheduled to stop off in Austria, my favourite country and one I love to visit. I wasn't disappointed. One place they stopped was the village of Seckau in the state of Styria. Here, they introduced us to Cafe Konditorei Regner, a family bakery since 1660, and their speciality gingerbread (or 'lebkuchen'). The gingerbread recipe was developed by the current owner and it was demonstrated on the programme by his son, Gregor, who, incidentally, won a gold medal at the International Baking Competition in Calgary, Canada, in 2009. You can see the Gregor Regner part of the programme on YouTube.

There was a most unusual story in Bermuda's The Royal Gazette last week. One of the country's leading soft drinks manufacturers, John Barritt & Son, famous for its Bermuda Stone Ginger Beer, actually ran out of the ginger beer for the best part of a month according to other sources. How did this happen? Barritt's ginger beer is made in Florida from a Jamaican and African ginger concentrate produced in Milton Keynes in the UK. The concentrate is shipped to the US as one of many goods in a container. A recent shipment was delayed by US Customs when a container was impounded whilst other goods were investigated by officials. Up until the end of 2010 the ginger beer was bottled in Bermuda which I assume means that the concentrate was shipped direct.

Green Bee Soda is beverage company from Maine, USA, with a unique selling proposition of making a range of sodas based on wildflower honey. The company made an announcement last week about the launch of a new flavour called Ginger Buzz. This drink contains freshly chopped ginger, coriander and the essential wildflower honey. Let me know what it's like if you are able to try it.

Organic farming is set to be the future according to the Assam state government in India. The Indian Express reported that the state goverment will allocate funding to encourage young people to take up farming and discourage existing farmers from using using chemicals. The range of eligible crops includes ginger and turmeric. The article also stated that Assam is one of India's major producers of ginger. I have read elsewhere that the state produces more than 70 percent of the country's ginger, some of it already organic. Interestingly, nearly 25 percent of Assam's farmland is already organic by virtue of the fact that there has been a shortage of chemical fertilisers.

Karbi Anglong is the largest of the 27 administrative districts in Assam. Four years ago, district officials applied to have Geographical Indication status for locally grown ginger. I don't know whether the status was ever granted but if it was then it confers an element of protection and exclusivity to what many people describe as a distinctive ginger. GIN-FED, the Ginger Growers Co-Operative Marketing Federation in Karbi Anglong, describes the local produce as the world's finest organic ginger. Traditionally, many of the ginger farmers in the district are women.

The Singhasan Hills in Karbi Anglong are said to produce the finest ginger in all India. But this area was the scene nearly ten years ago of an outbreak of violence between the Kuki and Karbi tribal communities over the Kuki production of ginger in the hills.

Last month I reported the story from The Gympie Times regarding the imminent sale of a family dairy farm and the switch to ginger farming. Well, according to The Gympie Times last week, the sell-off was completed successfully. But the latest story mentioned a detail of which I wasn't aware previously. The family already grow ginger on 10 acres of land and produce certified ginger 'seed' for Buderim Ginger.

So, whilst an Australian farmer is hoping to make a living from ginger seed, producers of ginger seed in one particular district of the Indian state of Karnataka are witnessing a dramatic fall in price. The Deccan Herald has reported that with fewer farmers wishing to grow ginger, the price of seed has plummeted from Rs 1,700 per bag to Rs 280. In fact, seed farmers may not even cover the cost of fertilisers and pesticides. It appears that it will be cheaper for the farmers to leave the ginger in the ground.

My understanding of the Indian ginger industry is that ginger is grown in areas which are isolated from and independent of each other. For example, the plight of a small part of the local ginger industry in Karnataka may be completely different to the state of the local ginger industry in Assam or Kerala. Difficulties in one area are not necessarily reflected elsewhere. There are too many factors involved such as variety, terroir, climate and export potential to name but a few.

The Maine Sunday Telegram carried a story about a relatively new start-up business in Portland, Maine. Urban Farm Fermentory (UFF) has introduced a range of alcoholic beverages called Urban Farm Fermentory Kombucha Culture which includes a ginger flavour. Kombucha is made from fermented green and black tea, and sugar. Interestingly, UFF is hoping to use local farmers to grow ginger in hothouses. These new drinks contain less than one percent alcohol.