Ginger Tipple Gets Ahead

June 15, 2018 by info@gingertipple.com

Ginger Tipple Gets A Head

One of the criticisms of Ginger Tipple, especially from Belgians, was that there is no head, no foam, no froth, no Belgian lace, therefore it cannot be a beer.

Appearances are important, even before one tastes or smells the beer, and while Ginger Tipple scores high on the flavour, aroma and colour, the froth disappeared within seconds. Even though plenty of lambics and geuzes do not have foams, but they are part of Belgium’s beer psyche. Ginger Tipple is not yet there.

This is about to change!

We carried out an experiment with some bottles of our new beer, the soon to be launched Tipple Hop. We double dry-hopped with two different hops giving it tons of hoppy flavour and aroma. At 7% ABV it also has a pleasant soothing effect on your nerves. A touch cloudy; if we could classify it, we would call it a New England Ginger Pale Ale.

In our laboratory, we developed a gluten-free non-chemical based additive which adds proteins to the Tipple Hop without affecting that delicious blend of ginger and hops.

Brewer Jeremy Sulzbacher commented “The commercial additives I tested left an unpleasant taste, so we developed our own natural foaming agent. This one even enhances the flavour!”

We are keeping the details secret, and it will be a few months before we can go commercial with it.

Helping People is Wonderful

June 4, 2018 by info@gingertipple.com

Helping People is Wonderful

I first met Marc Struyf 3 years ago. I was developing Ginger Tipple and I found out that he was one of Belgium’s leading hop expert. He travels each autumn to America’s main hop growing area, Yakima Valley to try out their latest varieties, and gets there before the big Belgian breweries.

He also grows some hops nearby and there is a big event each September when they are harvested.

He invited me to visit him on a Friday afternoon in late May. The weather was perfect and the garden of his brewery is idyllic. His microbrewery, Den Triest, is located in a small rural town near Brussels called Kapelle-op-den-bos,

We sat in the garden and after I explained to him what I was trying to achieve, a ginger beer with hops which had to be Kosher for Passover, and possibly organic, he suggested which hops to use, and even gave me some samples.

The Beers

And then we started tasting his beers. They are among the best you can ever taste. As a hop expert, his IPA is supreme. There are a number of skills to brewing an excellent IPA. Most importantly, the underlying ale has to have body and flavour. Too many IPAs are dishwater with lots of hops. If you taste his regular beers, the blondes, bruins, doubles etc, you will taste the excellence in his brewing.

Then there is the dry hopping, when the hops are added towards the end of the fermentation or after it. Besides the selection and proportions of the hops used, there is the timing. Again, a lot of IPAs have a nasty kick from leaving the hops in for too long.

Kriek

Another of his wonderful beers is his Kriek. Most of the cheaper krieks are sweet. The high-end lambic krieks are very sour. Marc achieves that perfect balance of a pleasant sourness with only an undertone of sweetness. Of course, the colour is wonderfully natural.

Marc taught me how to take our Ginger Kriek to a higher level, using a technique not found in textbooks.

The Bar

Marc brews mainly in 200 litre tanks and sells his brews in 75cl bottles, mainly for export. His bar is open on the first Sunday of each month. So if you want to taste his beers you have to catch one of the 12 days a year it is open.

The healthiest way is to go there by bike as there are a lot of few bike routes in the area.

Ginger Tipple

I get particular pride when I hear from other brewers who work with Marc that they tasted Ginger Tipple when they visited him. Yesterday, one of his regulars approached me and said that he had heard a lot about my ginger beer from Marc and wants to sell it in his bar in Mechelen – he stocks over 300 beers.

When I went to pay, I looked in the kitchen and saw on his shelf of favourites a bottle of Ginger Kriek, I beamed with pride.

What I like most…

When I thanked Marc for his help and told him that his advice was perfect he replied “I am happy for you .
Also for my self , helping people is wonderful.”

Praising the Rivals

May 23, 2018 by info@gingertipple.com

Alcoholic Ginger Beers

I regularly try and taste each alcoholic ginger beer and ginger ale of my competitors. My primary purpose is to keep my business plan up to date, but also to collect ideas about how to improve the Ginger Tipples and for new products.

For the purpose of this article, I will not name the products of my competitors, and if you ask me about a particular one, I will always praise their attributes, perhaps not as ebulliently as Ginger Tipple. Also, I always taste them together with a one or two ginger beer lovers whose opinions I value.

Conceptually, when we hear the word ‘ginger’ we think of people with red hair. In fact ginger beers and ales made from fresh root ginger will be an almost light grey in colour. The association of red and ginger comes from a specific type of ginger found in Malaysia which was common during the days of the British Empire.

Some ginger ales, especially the lower quality non-alcoholic ones use processed ginger, or ginger powder which has a darker hue to it. Many use ginger essence in conjunction with flavour enhancers and artificial colourings.

For reference, we achieve our golden colour by using exotic sugars and hops and only use very fresh ginger.

Passover

A few years ago, I went to a beer bar and shop in Jerusalem’s Machane Yehuda market where the owner, an old friend of mine, shared a Tipple with me and his bar-tenders. I apparently inspired one of them to crystallize his own ideas and create an alcoholic ginger beer.

Before it was launched, I saw pictures of production which showed that the ginger was boiled.

We tasted it on Passover and we all noticed that the ginger was cooked and that it was too sweet for our liking. Should be good as a cocktail mixer.

The Best Rival

After Ginger Tipple, the best alcoholic ginger beer comes from on of the leading cocktail mixer producers. With an ABV of 4%and a light to middling sweetness, you are still able to taste the gingers used. I say gingers, because there is a mixture of processed and fresh gingers. They also use better sugars.

Champagne

Ginger Beer I don’t want to boast too much, but if we were to compare the competitors of Ginger Tipple, the first one I reviewed in this blog is like an Asti Spumante. The second like a Cava.

We aim to be the champagne of this sector, and believe that we are that good.