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info@gingertipple.com

From Amateur to Professional

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New Face

Ginger Tipple, Ginger Beer

Last week, my friends, the 2 brothers at Studio Rauw in Antwerp, Christophe & Matthias, sent me the latest version of the Ginger Tipple label. This is the culmination of almost 5 months of work.

The first temporary label we used was designed by my friend Tuli Padwa for the first batches of Ginger Tipple which then went under the name “We Brew” because Jewish nrewer in America was already using “Hebrews”.

After coining the name Ginger Tipple I had to design a new label and image. For those of you familiar with the less used fonts of Microsoft, the main title is in Jokerman and the rest in Curlz. It looked funky, but amateur. This was good for the artisanal stage and it was obvious that in order to move to the next level I needed a new label.

Studio Rauw

As a Belgian beer I needed graphic artists who were beer drinkers and loved Ginger Tipple, Christophe & Matthias fitted the bill. We went through lots of ideas but slowly the ginger bearded man evolved. The actual artist who designed the face never met me and any similarities between the face and me are coincidental!

ginger tipple, ginger beer

This may take a few more iterations before the final label is ready, but it is definitely a great improvement on the old one.

Meug – I am serious, Ginger Tipple is better

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Meug

Last week I had the privilege of attending a Meug beer tasting event. I say privilege because there are a limited number of tickets and the organizers bring seven off-center beers for us to enjoy, or not!

I use the term ‘off center’ as a quote from Dogfish Head brewery in Delaware, USA, which specializes in beers which take you out of your comfort zone. They also brew some amazing regular beers, especially their 60, 90 and 120 minute IPAs.

Ginger Beer, Ginger Tipple

Mombasa

The tasting was held at Cafe Mombasa, run by Rein Adons who opened up a trendy beer bar in the center of Antwerp’s Muslim suburb of Borgehout.  It is one of the few places where you can buy Du Pont’s Saison on tap.

The Beers

Each beer was presented at the correct temperature but was served blind, we had no idea what was attacking our senses.

But when you drink beers, some of them quite expensive, and you can taste that a commercial fruit syrup was used instead of the fresh fruit or some of the ingredients were overpowering you start to think. On of my sons was with me and he summed it up “you can brew a bad beer and sell it very well for beer tastings only.”

Encouragement

The truth is that Frederik & Jeroen wanted to show us beers which we would most probably never buy, but there were two there which I would like to drink again, while two others were so sweet that I did not finish the glass.

It also shows that there is a lot of potential for Ginger Tipple!

Ginger Tipple Exceeds Expectations at the Modeste Beer Festival

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Palette Palace

When the organisers or the Modeste Beer Festival offered Ginger Tipple a stand, not in the main beer hall but outside in the Palette Palace together with the t-shirts and beer-cap jewellery, I was not to sure. But it worked out really well. I had never realised that walls and ceiling of this structure are composed entirely of wooden shipping palettes.

Ginger Beer, Ginger Ale, Ginger Tipple, Modeste Beer Festival

First, it was a bit quieter than in the main beer hall, which made it easier to explain to people all about ginger Tipple. The beer aficionados all fully understood that one cannot and should not survive for 8 full days without any beer.

Jews & Brews

Even though Ginger Tipple was not ‘inside’ the organisers were proud to have a Jewish brewer exhibiting, perhaps because the Muslims cannot. They even announced it to the other brewers before the festival opened. A lot of people came to our stand and were not put off by seeing 2 orthodox Jews standing there with Kipot

It’s a Ginger Thing

Ginger Beer, Ginger Ale, Ginger Tipple, Modeste Beer Festival

Almost every ginger haired person looked at our roll-up poster and wanted to be photographed next to it. Christophe and Matthias Bergmans of www.studiorauw.be did a great job designing the poster and managed to portray Ginger Tipple as the refreshing ginger thing – which it is.

Talk of the Event

Lode Habraken from Ginger Tipple’s main Belgian distributor Van Ecclepoel, travelled in from Herentals, told me that a lot of people were saying that Ginger Tipple was THE new beer which had to be tasted. A lot of brewers also came to see this illegitimate beverage at a beer festival. But if they can serve Coke and Sprite, we can certainly serve Ginger Tipple.

It’s Hard Work

We served about 400 glasses of Ginger Tipple in 8 hours and I couldn’t have managed without the enthusiastic help of my wife Shifra and tallest son Yedidya.

Brewers at these events are expected to go and visit the other brewers and we swap drinks for free. I must have tasted over 20 beers – real hard work. Some were excellent, some were good and a couple we had to pour out they were so bad. When I went to the sink at the rear counter and asked them to pour one down the sink, they immediately knew which beer it was; and that brewer is so proud of his drink!

Hopfull and Hopeful Ginger Beer, Ginger Ale, Ginger Tipple, Modeste Beer Festival

I took the opportunity to present to some experts the new version of Ginger Tipple, which uses the same ingredients, but the cascade hop is grown in Germany and not the USA. They were unanimous that German cascade was a bit lower on the citrus flavours and introduced some delicious earthy undertones to produce an even better Tipple.

Looking forward to next year’s Modeste Beer Festival.