Ginger Beer

Both Thijs and I are both keen drinkers of ginger beer but the closest I’ve ever come to the home-made version is a batch that my Grandmother made many, many years ago and the key lesson from that was that it was possible to make ginger beer at home.
So I thought it was time to give it a go. Research on the internet revealed that traditional ginger beer is made from an organic culture commonly referred to as (not surprisingly) Ginger Beer Plant or GBP. GBP is actually a plant but a mixture of bacteria and yeast that live together in a symbiotic relationship. Being a living organism, real GBP has the added bonus of growing during the process of brewing ginger beer, so that you end up with more than you started with. For this reason it was plentiful and common in UK households and people weren’t able to give it away. Nowadays though it is a lot less common to find and people have resorted to the internet to trade GBP.
Being in New Zealand this is a little more complicated, while there are lots of Ginger Beer plants advertised on Trade Me most aren’t the genuine culture but a substitute that is only good for a couple of batches (at best). So in an effort to get the real thing I have ordered 50g of GBP from Jim at The Ginger Beer Plant who has experience shipping internationally. Being a living culture, care needs to be taken to ensure that it will survive the journey to around the world.
So now we wait for the package to arrive and hope that it isn’t intercepted if MAF decides that I’ve broken their rules by bringing it into the country.
More information on making your own Ginger Beer at the Guardian UK Word of Mouth blog or The Ginger Beer Plant Yahoo group