A Great Ginger Beer Tasting

A GREAT GINGER BEER TASTING

10 ginger beers waiting to be tested

Good day everyone! Today I had the greatest opportunity to conduct another great tasting, now with different kinds of ginger beers! As we all know ginger beer is different from ginger ale and quote "The big difference between ginger beer and ginger ale is that ginger beer is brewed (fermented) but ginger ale is just carbonated water that's been flavored with ginger." Moreover, the taste is like day and night where proper ginger beer is spicy and much more full of flavor.

Over the weeks I managed to gather ten different kinds of products. These varied not only by size but also in taste. The more I thought of this tasting I realized one major aspect that should be taken into account: "Since marketing/branding is a key element of selling (anything), how do these products manage if put to the test?" Before we started tasting these beers, I asked each guest to rank the products from 1-10 based on their visual outlooks. To do this we assume that

1. One buys a product for a friend of theirs
2. All of these taste the same
3. They all costs the same (per liter)

I asked each one to do this "separately"; this way we can minimize any impact on others' opinions on the matter. I would later gather the intel and compile these as a spreadsheet. With four guests (and me), the maximum score was 50. I was interested in knowing if there was any consistency in the scoring and if any product really shines out (be it in better or worse).

Each guest was given a sheet with the ten ginger beers in a tasting order. We first went through five, had a small break and then sampled the rest. Although there wasn't any particular order per se, the first four were organic and the last three in cans. Otherwise the order was random so to speak. I did count up the carbohydrates (sugar) from each product g/100ml

1. Naturfrisk (organic, Denmark)       8.5g
2. Luscombe cold (organic, UK)         N/A
3. Luscombe hot (organic, UK)          N/A
4. Belvoir (organic, UK)                    10g
5. Fentiman's (UK)                           7.8g
6. Fever Tree (UK)                           10g
7. Bundaberg (Australia)                  10.8g
8. Grace (UK)                                  13.8g
9. Old Jamaican (UK)                       15.2g
10. Barr's Originals (UK)                    13.9g

Was (?) quite the coincidence that the last set contained the most sugary ones. Also to mention the difference between Luscombe cold & hot was that cold had 2% ginger and hot 3%, respectively.

The first set

With these products it is essential that you tip the bottle upside down a few times before opening. There is no danger of foam forming but it helps the ginger sediment (if any) to mix properly. What was peculiar was the fact the bottle sizes varied a lot. These included 200ml, 275ml, 320ml, 330ml, 375ml and 750ml.

The first set

Both Luscombe's had a rather lemony taste to it (it contained organic lemon juice from sicilian lemons) and Naturfrisk had a huge amount of ginger sediment in the bottle. Fentiman's had the least sugar of them all you could tell, both fiery and a tad bitter. But in my opinion a truly wild card in our set of ten was the Belvoir. In a perverse kind of way it tasted excellent and was ginger-y but had a very forest-y touch to it and I kid you not! You have that fresh birch whisk (used in saunas) aroma and earthy tones. Among us testers it stood out, it stood out good.

The last set

When it came to the last five, we were glad the order was how it was. Fever tree made a ginger cloudy (pun intended) distinction between the rest by its very spicy taste. After that, Bundaberg tasted like lemonade and the three last, being incredibly sugary couldn't beat the others either. In addition, Grace (picture middle) could have been disqualified for not really being a ginger beer at all. Its ingredients list doesn't mention ginger at all, just "natural ginger flavoring". Then again, for its defence it does claim it is a "Jamaican style" ginger beer. Old Jamaican was rated the best (out of the canned ones).

Tasting ginger beer, serious business!

Finally, each product was given a 1 to 10 points for its taste and I compiled a spreadsheet (as mentioned before) how each one managed.

(don't even care that the picture's borders go out of line)

WINNER BY LABEL(max 50 points)

1. Fentiman's, 41 points
2. Belvoir, 39 points
3. Old Jamaican, 34 points

WINNER BY TASTE(max 40 points)

1. Fever Tree, 31 points
2. Naturfrisk, 26.5 points
3. Belvoir & Fentiman's 25 points

Even when scoring is based on personal preferences/opinions, when we take a closer look at the scoring table we can clearly see that some products managed to keep consistency throughout the test. Naturfrisk  (8-8-7-3-2) and Old Jamaican (7-10-5-4-8) had the most variation when it came down to labels where the winner, Fentiman's had a solid score (10-8-7-8-8).

When it came down to taste, we can clearly notice how the first five were better overall. With the exception of Luscombe's cold, they all got 20+ in scores where as the last five (with the exception of our tasting winner Fever Tree), not a single one got 20 or more!

MORE SERIOUS BUSINESS!

So what conclusion(s) can we make out of this tasting/test? First of all, compared to regular soda, these are more expensive. But what was really interesting that how these ginger beers can taste so different and how much effort is put in making a good product. It's not just about good flavor, you also need to have a solid team making a great label for your fine product and be assured, it sells like hotcakes.

I later gave the canned ginger beers a thought and "what's with the heaps of sugar in them?" Even with their high sugar levels they do mix well with alcohol, because of said sugar! I couldn't really imagine making a Moscow Mule out of Belvoir, unless feeling really diabolical.

All in all, yet another great experiment in our back pockets, was fun to do!