About Ginger Beer Plant

Overview
Perhaps it's best to start by explaining what real ginger beer is not! Cans of ginger beer in shops are not real ginger beer. These are made fizzy by adding carbon dioxide, do not contain only pure, natural ingredients and there is no alcohol content. Some manufacturers sell 'botanical' ginger beer, or 'starter kits' for ginger beer. These are yeast-based products. If a description mentions adding yeast, then you're not looking at real ginger beer plant, but a simulacrum. This is because you can't make a genuine ginger beer plant - it is a live culture that has to be passed on from person to person.

Ginger beer plant is an organism which, when treated correctly, will help provide you with a lifetime's supply of real, old-fashioned ginger beer. Below we explain a little about the origins of the plant and describe the basic care.

Origins
Around in the UK from at least the 1700's, and passed from person to person, the ginger beer plant's origins were shrouded in mystery. To some extend they still are, but now at least we know what real ginger beer plant is. We have Harry Marshall Ward (a man with a singularly impressive moustache) to thank for solving some of the mysteries of the ginger beer plant. It took him many years, but he was able to determine that the plant is a "composite organism consisting of a fungus, the yeast Saccharomyces florentinus (formerly Saccharomyces pyriformis) and the bacterium Lactobacillus hilgardii (formerly Brevibacterium vermiforme)". It forms a gelatinous cluster which moves about within its jar rather like lava in a lava lamp! You can visit the gallery to see what the ginger beer plant looks like.

If we look back just one or two generations, most households had a ginger beer plant on their kitchen windowsill. Ask your older relatives and you'll often hear that spark of recognition as they remember that their great aunt always had a jar filled with a glorious golden liquid which would be tapped and drunk by the eager kids. As shop-bought fizzy pop increased in popularity, people forgot about the ginger beer plant and instead drank sugary chemical concoctions from multi-national corporations. Thankfully people are now realising that the old ways had merit and are thinking about brewing their own real ginger beer.

Care
Caring for your ginger beer plant is simple and won't take up too much time. We provide detailed re-hydration and care instructions with every purchase, but below you'll find some key points to note:
Your ginger beer plant can live in a large glass jar in your home, often the kitchen is the most convenient place. It doesn't like extremes of temperature, so normal room temperature up to about 30°C is good.

It lives in water but cannot tolerate chlorinated water. You can choose to use filtered water, though it has been suggested that this strips out too many good minerals. If you're concerned about this, you can add mineral water instead. If you're using filtered water, then you can also look at fortifying the water by adding minerals.

You'll also want to add sugar (we find organic, unrefined sugar is best) as well as some lemon and ginger. You can see our recipes section for ideas, though we'd highly recommend experimenting for the right balance for your tastes. Here, we tend to like adding chilli to our brews! It's not good to leave a brew for too long, because as it ferments the alcohol content increases and this will kill off the probiotic.

When your ginger beer is ready (between 2 and 7 days), you'll want to have some bottles ready. Ginger beer is fizzy, so you'll need to avoid glass bottles in case the pressure builds and leads to an explosion! Plastic bottles should be fine. And then, just chill or add some ice and enjoy your own homemade fizzy drink - again and again!

If you treat your ginger beer plant well, feeding it what it likes and maintaining a good temperature, then it will last a lifetime. So for a tiny price, you could be enjoying ginger beer for your lifetime, and your grandchildren could be using the same plant to create theirs!

For more information, please click the link to check out our Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs) section.