Traditional gingerbeer is a sweetened and carbonated, usually non-alcoholic beverage. It is produced by the natural fermentation of prepared ginger spice, yeast and sugar. Its origins date from the colonial spice trade with the Orient and the sugar-producing islands of the Caribbean. It was popular in Britain and its colonies from the 18th century. Other spices were variously added and any alcohol content was limited to 2% by excise tax laws in 1855. Few brewers have maintained an alcoholic product. Current ginger beers are often manufactured rather than brewed, frequently with flavor and color additives. Ginger ales are not brewed. Ginger beer is still produced at home using a symbiotic colony of yeast and a Lactobacillus known as a "ginger beer plant" or from a "ginger bug" starter created from fermenting ginger, sugar, and water.
History
As early as 500 BC, ginger was used as a medicine and for flavouring food in Ancient China and India. In the western hemisphere, ginger was used to spice up drinks. During the Victorian era, it was used to brew an alcoholic beverage termed "ginger beer". Brewed ginger beer originated in Yorkshire in England in the mid-18th century and became popular throughout Britain, the United States, Ireland, South Africa and Canada, reaching a peak of popularity in the early 20th century. Brewed ginger beer was brought to the Ionian Islands by the British Army in the 19th century, and is still made as a local specialty known as tsitsibíra by villagers in rural Corfu.
Production
Alcoholic ginger beer
Brewed ginger beer originated in the UK, but is sold worldwide. Crabbie's is a popular brand in the UK. It is usually labelled "alcoholic ginger beer" to distinguish it from the more established commercial ginger beers, which are not brewed, but carbonated with pressurized carbon dioxide.
Ginger beer plant
The ginger beer plant, also known as "bees wine", "Palestinian bees", "Californian bees", and "balm of Gilead", is not what is usually considered a plant but a composite organism comprising the yeast Saccharomyces florentinus and the bacteriumLactobacillus hilgardii, which form a symbiotic culture of bacteria and yeast. It forms a gelatinous substance that allows it to be easily transferred from one fermenting substrate to the next, much like kefir grains, kombucha, and tibicos. The GBP was first described by Harry Marshall Ward in 1892, from samples he received in 1887. Original ginger beer is brewed by leaving water, sugar, ginger, optional ingredients such as lemon juice and cream of tartar, and GBP to ferment for several days, converting some of the sugar into alcohol. GBP may be obtained from several commercial sources. Until about 2008 laboratory-grade GBP was available only from the yeast bank Deutsche Sammlung von Mikroorganismen und Zellkulturen in Germany, but the item is no longer listed. The National Collection of Yeast Cultures had an old sample of "Bees wine" as of 2008, but current staff have not used it, and NCYC are unable to supply it for safety reasons, as the exact composition of the sample is unknown. In the UK, the origins of the original ginger beer plant is unknown. When a batch of ginger beer was made using some ginger beer plant, the jelly-like residue was also bottled and became the new GBP. Some of this GBP was kept for making the next batch of ginger beer, and some was given to friends and family, so the 'plant' was passed on through generations. Following Ward's research and experiments, he created his own ginger beer from a new 'plant' that he had made, and he proposed, but did not prove, that the 'plant' was created by contaminants found on the raw materials, with the yeast coming from the raw brown sugar and the bacteria coming from the ginger root.
Yeast starter
A ginger beer starter can be made by fermenting a mixture of water, brewer's or baker's yeast, ginger, and sugar; this is kept for a week or longer, with sugar regularly added to increase alcohol content. More ginger may also be added. When finished, this concentrated mix is strained, diluted with water and lemon juice, and bottled. This is the process used by commercial ginger beer makers. Ginger beer made from a yeast-based starter is reported to not have the same taste or mouth feel as that made with ginger beer plant. And it must be noted the near-complete loss of the ginger beer plant is likely due to the decrease in home brewing and the increased commercial production of ginger beer in the late 1800s and early 1900s. Large-scale breweries favored the use of yeast, as used in conventional beer-making, because of ease for scaled production.
The ginger beer soft drink may be mixed with beer to make one type of shandy, or with dark rum to make a drink, originally from Bermuda, called a Dark 'N' Stormy. It is the main ingredient in the Moscow Mule cocktail.
