Talk:Ginger beer

Thanks for this article.
I'm not English, but I've read Enid Blyton's "Famous Five" just to get some practise in the language (remember adult's books are much too difficult reads for foreigners). That's why I wondered a lot that Blyton would have some adolescents younger than 15 have drink BEER in the books? So this tells us even in the middle of the 20th century the alcoholic ginger beer was already about to disappear. -andy 85.179.123.0 (talk) 04:37, 3 December 2009 (UTC)
 * Not necessarily. E. Nesbit's Bastables had ginger-beer in the 1890s and 1900s. It's just that the alcohol content is low (at ~0.5% for modern brands, weaker than a shandy), and that much was just considered OK for kids to drink. 76.238.137.44 (talk) 10:07, 6 February 2010 (UTC)
 * Actually in Modern Brands there is NO alcohol whatsoever. You might be able to get Alcoholic Ginger Beer (e.g. Crabbies) but nowadays it's far more common to have non alcoholic Ginger Beer (especially as it is commonly marketed towards children)  — Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.18.72.30 (talk) 20:58, 25 June 2011 (UTC)
 * I know that it has been over a decade since this was written but I would like to point out that traditionally brewed ginger beer such as Bundaberg (mentioned in the article) do contain that 0.5 alchohol. What many modern companies advertise as ginger beer could just as easily be called a ginger ale (these brands include Fever Tree, Old Jamaica, and Schweppes.) 193.13.169.164 (talk) 18:46, 30 December 2023 (UTC)

True GBP purchasing availability refs
Pol098, were it not for these refs, I'd contest that GBP was commercially available at all and add a citation needed tag. I don't care about the ref, but the statement that true GBP is commercially available needs proof. -kslays (talk • contribs) 04:16, 12 February 2010 (UTC)


 * It's available. I've bought some from there.--FergusM1970Let's play Freckles 16:37, 14 January 2014 (UTC)

Contradictory image
The image accompanying this article is of Fentiman's Botanically Brewed Ginger Beer (very nice Ginger beer BTW).

This is (as far as I can tell) neither a carbonated soft drink, nor an alcoholic brewed beverage. Fentiman's contains less than the 0.5% alcohol required to call something non-alcoholic, compared to the 3-15% alcohol one obtains with yeast (or the yeast contained in GBP)

Just sayin'

82.69.192.195 (talk) 14:13, 5 January 2011 (UTC)

Keep up the good work
This article is hilarious! I like all of the mysticism about "true ginger beer plant" vs. "just yeast". Clearly you guys don't read old recipe books, or you'd know that it was always started from brewers' yeast. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.43.128.217 (talk) 00:39, 15 March 2011 (UTC)

Wildly Popular
"Ginger beer and ginger ale as soft drinks have been wildly popular in many parts of the world particularly Norway, Bulgaria, and Medina, Ohio since they were introduced."

This sentence is a bit peculiar. Firstly that the drinks are 'wildly' popular; I assume the author meant 'widely' but if not there needs to be a citation showing that they do indeed go wild for ginger beer in Norway, Bulgaria and Medina, Ohio. Also, two entire countries then a small city in the US? Medina's page doesn't mention ginger beer at all so why is it so popular there and not the rest of the country? --Lynch2007 (talk) 23:14, 22 February 2012 (UTC)


 * Looking back over the revision history it looks like this sentence is deliberate vandalism (see a few edits by the same user in Dec 2011) so I've reverted it back to what it was before the change. --Lynch2007 (talk) 23:22, 22 February 2012 (UTC)

Reference link broken
Reference [11] is no longer valid as is and needs repair (if possible): returns "Page not found" "Error 404". I do not know how to do this. Victorsteelballs (talk) 14:23, 13 April 2012 (UTC)

Ginger ale vs. Ginger beer
What's the difference between them? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.207.39.63 (talk) 01:10, 25 July 2013 (UTC)
 * As I understand it, there are several varieties:
 * Fermented ginger beer, which is fermented, usually with the GBP SCOBY culture.
 * Unfermented ginger beer, which is a cloudy, carbonated beverage similar to golden ginger ale, which typically has a stronger, spicier flavour than ginger ale.
 * Golden ginger ale, which is a dark, clear carbonated beverage similar to unfermented ginger beer.
 * Dry ginger ale, which is lighter in colour than golden ginger ale, and has a milder ginger flavour, generally without the spicy kick.
 * Ginger beer originated in England, ginger ale originated in North America. -- Gordon Ecker, WikiSloth (talk) 20:58, 16 November 2015 (UTC)

The significiance of the ginger beer plant / Reference links broken
Quote from the article: "The original recipe requires only ginger, sugar, water, lemon juice and a fungal-bacteria symbiote known as a ginger beer plant."

If there really is something like THE original ginger beer recipe chances are, that this original recipe was not made using a ginger beer plant. The original article by Harry Marshall Ward (http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/183/125.full.pdf) suggests the possibility that the ginger beer plant was not known in Great Britain before the middle of the 19th century. Also if you look at recipes from old books from the 19th century (found via Google Books) several recipes using yeast pop up but no recipes using ginger beer plant.

btw: The links behind reference [2] and [10] are broken. The German culture bank does not sell the Ginger Beer Plant anymore.

Guennik (talk) 08:36, 16 August 2013 (UTC)

EDIT: Searched http://www.britishnewspaperarchive.co.uk/ for the term "Ginger Beer Plant". Several references came up ranging from 1854 - 1936.

--Guennik (talk) 10:35, 20 August 2013 (UTC)

Fair use candidate from Commons: File:Soft Drink.svg
The file File:Soft Drink.svg, used on this page, has been deleted from Wikimedia Commons and re-uploaded at File:Soft Drink.svg. It should be reviewed to determine if it is compliant with this project's non-free content policy, or else should be deleted and removed from this page. If no action is taken, it will be deleted after 7 days. Commons fair use upload bot (talk) 21:16, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Fair use candidate from Commons: File:Soft Drink.svg
The file File:Soft Drink.svg, used on this page, has been deleted from Wikimedia Commons and re-uploaded at File:Soft Drink.svg. It should be reviewed to determine if it is compliant with this project's non-free content policy, or else should be deleted and removed from this page. If no action is taken, it will be deleted after 7 days. Commons fair use upload bot (talk) 21:30, 27 May 2014 (UTC)

Ginger beer plant discussion group
In the past, I placed a link to a ginger beer plant group on Yahoo for discussing everything ginger plant. This was placed in "External Links". This was promptly removed with a warning that it violated Wikipedia's policies regarding external links.

Today, I posted within the body of the article that there is such a group: this was removed within a few minutes with the advisement that it required appropriate reference/documentation. I have no affiliation with this group and only mention it for those who would desire learning more about this from those who have first hand experience.

This time, I will try making reference to the group and place the link with it. If this is not the correct way to do this, or the wrong place, please forgive me and just correct it. I'm not putting any more time into this.Victorsteelballs (talk) 05:21, 24 May 2015 (UTC)
 * The edit summary refers to the policy and specifically mentions the section that reads - (to avoid) Social networking sites (such as Myspace, Facebook, LinkedIn, and Instagram), chat or discussion forums/groups (such as Yahoo! Groups), Twitter feeds, Usenet newsgroups or e-mail lists. --Dmol (talk) 07:24, 24 May 2015 (UTC)

Timeline issues
The article currently contains the following:
 * "Brewed ginger beer originated in Yorkshire in England in the mid-18th century "

Supposedly, brewed ginger beer originated in the mid-20th century, but the cited source is dated 1702. So obviously, something is wrong here. I can think of a two possibilities: Could someone with access to the book fact-check this? -- Gordon Ecker, WikiSloth (talk) 20:37, 16 November 2015 (UTC)
 * There was a typo, it's supposed to say "mid-17th century".
 * The book was originally published in 1702, but the information on ginger beer was added in a later reprint.
 * Fact checked! https://books.google.de/books/about/The_History_of_the_Royal_Society_of_Lond.html?id=g30OAAAAQAAJ&redir_esc=y -- NikiWiki (talk) 14:46, 14 September 2017 (UTC)

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Alcoholic ginger beer is still widespread
Crabbies ginger beer with 4% ABV is very popular in the UK however this article implies alcoholic ginger beer barely exists anymore 2A00:23C7:2B8C:3201:D929:2580:D0C7:DD8B (talk) 15:30, 5 December 2022 (UTC)


 * The article clearly says ' Crabbie's is a popular brand in the UK', which is so. This doesn't really undermine the overall situation described in the lede, which is that world wide, alcoholic ginger beer is much less common than non-alcoholic. Sbishop (talk) 16:03, 5 December 2022 (UTC)

"world wide, alcoholic ginger beer is much less common than non-alcoholic" Is that really true? From what I've seen (mostly in Finland), ginger beers are usually alcoholic, and ginger ales usually non-alcoholic. Though I've seen both non-alcoholic and alcoholic... 46.132.3.220 (talk) 10:12, 14 February 2024 (UTC)