"Commercial" Ginger Beer

[Jordo]

Hi All,

After trying a few ginger beer kits (Colony West, Mangrove Jacks and Morgans) as well as dabbling in a few DIY recepies, I have been thoroughly dissapointed in the results. They either have that definite "home brew" taste despite good temperature control and sanitisation or have just had too much of a ginger kick to the point where my mouth would burn after 2-3 glasses. A few have also turned out closer to a ginger cider than a beer.

What I am really looking for is something similar to the commercially available ginger beers, in particular, Brookvale Union, just a genuinely easy drinking ginger beer without too much burn (for me at least). I am not averse to the artificial sweetner taste.

Does anyone have any recipe suggestions or kit modification ideas?

Jordo.

Edit - I should mention I am kegging, not bottling.

 

[livo]

You have joined a big club, ie; those searching for a good easy-drinking Ginger Beer. I was enjoying the Brigalow kits bumped up with a bit of extra fresh ginger root, but you can no longer buy it. The Morgan's Kit tastes of artificial sweetener to me and I don't like the stuff, although the last batch I did has improved with age and I can drink it now. I still have 2 pouches to get through.

I also like the Brookvale Union, as well as Great Northern and Hawkesbury, but I haven't really been able to get close. The nearest I can get to a commercial GB is to make "Soda Water with Soda Stream Ginger Beer flavouring" and add the required amount of neutral spirit (vodka) to get to the ABV I want. If you're doing kegging, you could either make a whole keg up or do what I do and just have a keg dedicated to soda water and make up my own soft drinks and alcoholic Ginger Beer in bottles as required. It isn't home brew, but it is at least achievable.

 

[KegLand-com-au]

We are just about to release a new product that we would like you to try out. It's quite a different method of making ginger beer. The instructions are quite similar to this Hard Solo recipe:
https://kegland.com.au/products/hard-pub-squash-keg-kit

We will have a ginger kit like this very soon on the website. Essencially it's the same type of recipe but you add our new Ginger extract rather than the Lemon Impressence Pub Squash.

If you are interested in giving it a go we would be really keen to get your impression. Given that you have already tried the Colony west, Mangrove Jacks and Morgans kit you would be the perfect person to do a comparison.

 

[Yorkie88]

This one isn't bad - I've only had a quick taste and it wasn't carbonated so can't say if it's an exact clone, but it looks like Brookvale and was pretty tasty. Also, it wasn't too expensive as a kit so could be worth a try either way, for research.

You could just get the bits yourself without ordering the kit, to save on shipping. The ginger enhancer might be tricky though as I don't really know what it actually was......maybe the Kegland one that Kee mentioned can fill that gap.

It's based on Colony West but the malt and raw sugar might make it different enough for you to like it?

https://thehomebrewshop.com.au/product/beer-recipe-kit-union-ginger-beer-kit/

I also tried the kit from AHB and that one was good, but a very different style - it was definitely on the spicier side!
https://www.australianhomebrewing.com.au/old-fashioned-ginger-beer

I got a mangrove jack kit once but when I emailed them, they said it was more like a ginger flavoured beer so I gave it to someone else (I only really like cider and "hard" ginger beer)

Hope that helps!

PS. That hard solo kit sounds very tempting!

 

[sp0rk]

Almost all of the "Ginger Beers" made by CUB etc are just flavours mixed with soda water & vodka, so it's near on impossible to replicate them unless you can find the flavour mix they're using and then mix it down with home made neutral spirit & good filtered water