CityLife

Ginger spice

marble beer list

ANOTHER week, another alcoholic ginger beer to bring some ginger spice into my life. Naylor’s of Keighley was a brewery new to me. Taylor’s, yes. The legendary Timothy’s in the same town, who could miss.

Well, Landlord never put a ginger wig on. Naylor’s, after only three years in business, have stretched beyond their normal Pinnacle range to produce a Brewer’s Choice Ginger Bottle Conditioned Beer. In half litre bottles at 4.4 per cent ABV it is a delightul tipple.

It is way down in the ginger bruiser stakes, as detailed in my summer long quest in these pages, but beautifully balanced. A heavenly scent doesn’t quite follow through into a complex ale, but one of the best (Booths supermarkets, £1.89).

On word of warning. As a bottle-conditioned beer, it throws a yeast sediment, so keep it upright for 24 hours to settle before consuming.

The non-alcoholic variety

Ginger beer normally isn't high on my beverage priority list. Even the traditional, blood-cooling kind.

At this year's Northern Restaurant and Bar exhibition at Manchester Central I almost burned my tongue sampling fiery Fentimans. This Northumbrian brew even featured in Delia Smith's How To Cheat At Cooking book as a component of rhubarb and ginger jelly. It is available at good health food stores or at £1.18 a bottle for a case of 12 plus P&P from realfooddirect.co.uk.

Marble still the cool ginger

Sweetness is the curse of a true ginger beer, alholic or not. That's not the case with the best ginger-based beer in the country from our own award-winning Marble Brewery.

Whether in its 4.5 or six per cent, bottle or draught forms, it is a brilliant ale (providing you like ginger, of course). The peeling of the knobbly ginger roots must be a chore but the mix of ginger zing and a hoppy dryness gives this pale orange ale the edge.

Available on handpump from Marble Arch Brewery on Rochdale Road, Knott Bar, Deansgate or Chorlton's Marble Bar.