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Drink

Ginger Beer

A fermented beverage made from sugar, water, ginger, lemon rind, egg whites, yeast, and optional brandy or hops.

From an old cookbook · modernised transcription
From a historical cookbook (Internet Archive) · 8 ingredients
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Why it works: Ginger and lemon match in chemistry and in kitchens. They rank in the top 5% of all ingredient pairs, and cooks put them together in 5,154 recipes. Both carry beta-phellandrene, which smells minty, terpene. The science ↓

Ginger Beer

Ingredients

Directions

Make the liquor

  1. Boil the sugar and water together.

  2. Beat the egg whites.

  3. Skim the mixture carefully.

  4. Add the ginger and shaved rind of the lemon.

  5. Boil for 30 minutes.

  6. Remove the white pith from the lemon.

  7. Add the pith to the mixture.

  8. Let the mixture cool.

Ferment and bottle

  1. Stir in the yeast.

  2. Pour the mixture into a barrel without straining.

  3. Seal the barrel tightly.

  4. After two weeks, draw off the beer.

  5. Bottle the beer.

Recipe from a historical cookbook (Internet Archive).

Transcribed from a scanned cookbook and modernised for today's kitchens. Where the book gave no heat or time, or said "a moderate oven", the temperatures and times here may be modern equivalents rather than the book's own figures.

Explore the science

The flavor team

The pairs that carry this dish. Each one is judged two ways: how much their aromas overlap, and how often cooks already put them together.

  1. Ginger + lemontop 5% of all pairs
    Smell alikestrong
    Cooked together5,154 recipes

    Shared aroma: beta-phellandrene (minty, terpene).

  2. Sugar + gingertop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together14,054 recipes

    Shared aroma: 1-penten-3-one (fish, pungent).

  3. Egg + brandytop 17% of all pairs
    Smell alikemoderate
    Cooked together7,340 recipes

    Shared aroma: acetoin (butter, cream).

  4. Sugar + lemontop 18% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together53,532 recipes

    Shared aroma: 2-nonenal (fatty, green).

  5. Lemon + eggtop 19% of all pairs
    Smell alikelow
    Cooked together44,316 recipes

    Shared aroma: (e,e)-2,4-decadienal (fatty, deep fried).

Sugar and ginger barely smell alike, yet cooks put them together in 14,054 recipes: they work on texture and structure more than aroma.

Ranks compare each pair with 20,000 random ingredient pairs on CompKitchen. How we score pairs

What each ingredient does

Loaf sugar
Feeds the yeast, which turns it into carbon dioxide and alcohol.
Yeast
Ferments the sugar, producing the carbonation and alcohol that make the beer.
Ginger
Supplies the spicy, warming aroma and flavour that define the beer.
Egg whites
Bind to impurities so they can be skimmed off, clarifying the liquid.
Lemon rind
Adds bright citrus aroma and a touch of sharpness.

The step that matters

Stir in the yeast only after the mixture has cooled. Yeast is killed by hot liquid. Adding it only once the mixture is cool lets it survive and start fermenting the sugar.

Swap the lemon

How well each one fits the dish's main ingredients (sugar, ginger, egg, brandy, hops):

  1. Vanillafits better
  2. Peachfits about as well
  3. Lemonthe original
  4. Applefits about as well

Fit is the average pairing score against sugar, ginger, egg, brandy, hops. Candidates are from the same food group and used in at least 100 recipes.

“What each ingredient does” and “The step that matters” were written by Claude from this recipe’s own method and reviewed in samples by CompKitchen.

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