A local farm is offering fresh ginger grown in their greenhouse. I tried some the other day and it was just amazing. I am now tempted to brew with it. The first idea I had was a Tripel or possibly a Belgian Golden Strong. On the crazier side, I was thinking of adopting Stone’s 12th Anniversary chocolate stout recipe by substituting some belgian ingredients & yeast and of course, a good chunk of ginger.
Any thoughts on this? What other beers would be great with this very fresh ginger?
Dan
Not sure what beers would go well (although I have a generic Euro pale ale recipe I use for my Christmas beer), but from what I recall I used a 6:1 ratio (fresh:dried). You’ll want to grate the ginger and treat it like a late hop addition to the boil (last 10-15 minutes).
Kona has a draft islands only ginger lemongrass blonde. It’s good enough that I almost bought a growler but restrained as I don’t need any more growlers in my collection. Shoot them an email to see if they will share how they go about it.
Ginger fits well with many Belgian styles and has a long history of use in saison.
Fresh ginger needs a deft hand unless you’re going for an aggressive ginger flavor. If you intend ginger to be a balanced addition–what you probably want in a Belgian beer–you want to think of it like a fresh herb rather than a fruit or hop addition. 1-2 oz. for five gallons is the most you should use and a lot less would be acceptable. Farmhouse Ales cites as little as 0.7-1.2g per five gallons. Some of the full on ginger beers would be closer to 2-3 lb. ginger per five gallons.
I have used 1 oz freshly grated ginger at 5 min remaining in the boil for an asian themed beer. It was super aggressive in my opinion. I believe for the next attempt I used 1/2 and it was still a bit too much. I normally use ground ginger which is obviously less flavorful and potent.