Ginger beer is hugely popular in New Zealand, and Rus and I are huge fans as well.  Ginger beer is not the same as ginger ale (though I do not even know the difference!), and it’s non-alcoholic (although local breweries often have an alcoholic version).  It is so yummy!

I gave up drinking soda in the United States because it is made with high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS), likely the single most unhealthy ingredient in the American diet.  In New Zealand, since there is no corn (and, subsequently, no powerful corn lobby!), sodas are made with cane sugar, even Cokes and Pepsis. Of course, this does not make them as healthy as water, it simply means they are made with ingredients from nature, which HFCS cannot claim.

Anyway, we tried several brands of ginger beer, and our favorite is one called Frank.  Frank Ginger Beer has a spicy kick to it, a lovely, spiky fizziness, and is fabulously sweet and refreshing.  And it comes in a brown recycled glass bottle with a retro-looking label.  It has become one of my favorite beverages ever!  Other brands lack the amount of spice, have too much sugar, etc. However, because Frank is so awesome, Frank is notoriously hard to find, and it is expensive (between $2-3 per 16oz. bottle!).

So, Rus and I did a little research (read: looked at the ingredients on the back of a Frank bottle), and as it turns out, ginger beer is not all that complicated to make.  Basically, it is just fresh ginger, sugar, water, and yeast.  We endeavored to make our own!  Our kitchen is consistently stocked with all of these ingredients, so one night, Rus gave it a whirl.

In his first attempt, Rus used an internet recipe that called for two tablespoons of ginger (I use more than that when I cook a meal for two!), a lot of sugar, the juice of a lemon, and a bit yeast for a two-litre batch.  Fearing a sticky explosion, Rus let the pressure out of the bottle several times as it puffed up.  When it was time to taste it the following day, we discovered we had nearly two litres of sugary, lemony, lightly-fizzy drink with a barely-discernible hint of ginger.  It did not taste good at all and needed to be discarded.

Our review of the first batch resulted in some adjustments in the second, keeping the batch size the same.  We left it overnight, and eagerly tasted our adjusted recipe the next day.  This one was less sweet, nicely fizzy, more gingery; however, it had a strong yeast flavour.  It was drinkable, but not exactly pleasant.  Third time’s a charm, right?

On Batch #3, we reduced the amount of water and kept all other inputs the same.  After fermentation, the first taste revealed a spicy, fizzy, nicely sweet ginger beer!  It passed the initial taste test (i.e. Rus and me) and was put into the refridgerator to cool for final approval by our “esteemed tasting panel” (i.e. the rest of 20 Derby) - which ultimately gave Rus raving reviews for the delicious, spicy drink.  But there was room yet for improvement…

In Rus’s latest brew (Brew #4), he tweaked the ingredient quantities to exacting deliciousness.   So far, the brew tastes amazing; the best yet!  The yeast flavour is reduced, the sweetness just right, plenty of fizz, and the ginger - wow!  We are waiting for it to chill for the final tasting, including a blind taste test of local brands and Rus’s Derby Brew by a completely unbiased group of other Derby Street residents.  If successful, we might take our ginger beer on the road to Cathedral Square for real public opinion.

May the best brew win!

*Preliminary tests show that Rus’s ginger beer can tame feral cats and eliminate cancer in laboratory mice.  There are no actual studies to substantiate these claims.*