Ginger beer

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About Ginger beer
Wikipedia Article About Ginger beer on Wikipedia

Ginger beer is a type of carbonated beverage, flavored primarily with ginger, lemon and sugar. It originated in England in the mid 1700s, and it reached its peak of popularity in the early 1900s. The original recipe requires only ginger, sugar, and water, to which is added a gelatinous substance called "ginger beer plant": fermentation over a few days turns the mixture into ginger beer. Lemon may be added. The last known real ginger beer plant was reported in the 1940s. Some form of live culture must nowadays be used instead to produce fermented (real) ginger beer; this is often baker's or brewer's yeast, but can also be a culture of lactic acid bacteria, kefir grains, or tibicos. Ginger beer is fizzy due to carbon dioxide; the alcohol content when produced by the traditional, lost, process is high, about 11%, although yeasts available today, without the benefit of symbiotic bacteria, produce little alcohol.