What is Ginger Beer?

Ginger beer in the modern bar is almost always a non-alcoholic ginger soda — historically a fermented, lightly alcoholic drink, now usually force-carbonated with ginger extract or puree and sugar. It is the mixer in mules: spirit, lime, and ginger beer over ice.

If the bottle tastes like lemon-lime soda with a rumor of ginger, it will not carry a mule. The heat is the point of the modifier.

Ginger heat (gingerols and related pungent compounds), sweetness, and carbonation. A useful ginger beer should sting. Ginger ale is a milder, sweeter, more citrus-soda-like cousin and will not supply the same bite.

The Moscow Mule (vodka, lime, ginger beer) is a mid-20th-century American drink, closely tied to vodka’s postwar marketing. Dark rum plus ginger beer is the Dark ’n’ Stormy family (Gosling’s has trademarked a particular specification). Both drinks fail when the ginger ale is timid, because the template has no other source of spice.

Older ginger beer was a fermented grocery product; the cocktail mixer is its carbonated descendant.

Build over ice: spirit, lime juice, ginger beer last. A copper mug is traditional for the mule and irrelevant to the recipe’s chemistry; ice and lime are not optional.

Use ginger beer when the recipe names it. Use ginger ale only when you want a milder, sweeter highball on purpose.