Ginger Snap Brown Ale.

I just brewed this as my Christmas beer. I'm still doing mostly extract/kits. I used Northern Brewer's Nut Brown Ale kit, 2 1/2 bags of Meyers' Ginger Snaps. I added 1/2lb of lactose. Boiled 2oz of sweet orange peel, 4 cinnamon sticks, 1 tsp nutmeg, 1 tsp allspice, 1 oz of grated ginger for 30 min. The wort tastes pretty good, not very gingery, but I definitely taste the cookie. I'm planning on boiling some more of the spice mix with my priming sugar at bottling.

OG is 1.050

That was very much how I was thinking about doing it IsildursHeir, please update on progress! I don't have enough equipment to do all grain and i'm very curious how this will turn out in an extract kit!

Anything beer gets called "cookie juice" sounds like a very good idea to me!

Just brewed a 5 gallon batch of this today. I used BIAB, and had the same issues with getting it to stay flowing. Did get a little oily residue showing during chill. My color was a match to my copper chiller! Smelled good; hit my gravity at 1.060. The entire grain bag, cookies and all, are currently baking up to be Christmas dog treats for my girls and all their doggy friends. They smell awesome with the ginger and peanut butter added.

Thanks for the recipe and advice Revvy. I will post how mine ends up. It won't be ready for the holidays, but should be enjoyable through the winter months.

So, I just tasted it, and I'm really happy with how it turned out. Very much like "cookie juice", though it could use more ginger. I'll be bottling later today, and I'll add 1oz of sweet orange peel, and 2oz of grated ginger to my priming sugar boil.
OG was 1.050, FG was 1.010, bringing me to 5.3% ABV, so right on target for an English brown. While this could probably use some bottle conditioning, I really think the flavors are where I want them, and it will be ready enough for Christmas, though I'm definitely saving some to try in a few months. Thanks Revvy for the recipe and the idea! I'll update when I crack one open, and let you all know how it turns out.

Glad you like it. Haven't made this in awhile....Maybe I need to consider it sometime in the near future.

I really like your spicing.

Ok, well I just cracked the first one open. I like it, not what I expected, but it's pretty smooth. I think I overdid the orange peel, because that's the most noticeable flavor. If I do this again, I'll keep it at maybe 1.5 oz total of sweet orange peel, and increase the ginger or find some that has more of a bite, as I've noticed a few things I've used the ginger in are sweeter than usual, and reminds me of pickled ginger. This has only been bottled for 2 weeks so I expect the flavor to change, but it's overall a good brew. I have the label I created attached if anyone is interested. Props go to SWMBO for the idea for the label and the name. Let me know if you have any questions, and I'll answer as best as I can.

IsildursHeir, that label kicks ass!


I finally tapped my keg of Revvy's Gingersnap brown ale at my family's Christmas gathering, and it was a huge hit. It was delicious and disappeared quickly. I was a bit disappointed that the spice flavor profile had dropped out substantially since I kegged it (I let it age for several months), but the beer underneath it was still really good. It no longer tasted distinctly of ginger snaps, but still had a "Christmas" vibe to it, if that makes sense.

The only thing that I would change next time is that I would not age it as long, as the ginger flavors seem to diminish over time. Still very good though.

After 3 months in the bottle, I have to say I'm impressed. The excess orange flavor is gone, and I can definitely taste the bite of ginger snaps. The only problem is I overcarbed it, and get a gusher every time I open a bottle. I'm pretty sure this was due to my 5 gallon batch finishing up at about 4 gallons after the residue from the cookies. I didn't think about this when I added the priming sugar, and added enough for 5 gallons instead of 4. Regardless, I'm happy with the turnout, and I'll make this again.

God, I totally forgot about this one. Glad you guys like my funky experiment.

It's hard to believe it's been 5 years since I did this beer just before having my heart surgery...today is the 5th anniversary of the pacemaker being put in, 3 days after the valve replacement.

Someone just posted a thread that they were doing a gingerbread ale and I decided to see if I had ever posted about this beer...I didn't even remember doing this thread...

I have on tap now a fantastic American Brown that is a close clone of Smuttynoses Brown Dog Ale, that I think might be nice to spice with gingernaps or gingerbread..... might have to revisit this.

This one sounds really intriguing... I wonder if more of a gingery flavor might come through with and addition of candied ginger..?

Couldn't hurt. I think it really depends on what ginger snaps you use. I've thought about doing this again a few times. Maybe my next batch, we'll see...

Xcorpia said:

So I finally recieved the ingredients and I'm going to follow Revvy's recipe with a couple of tweaks:

BIAB Method
4 X 14 oz Trader Joes Ginger Snaps in mash
Mash 3.30 gallons @ 154 for 60 minutes.
Sparge 2.20 gallons @ 168

4 lb 4 oz Pale Malt (Maris Otter)
2 lb 4 oz Caramel/Crystal Malt - 60L
1 lb 4 oz Biscuit Malt
3 oz Flaked Oats
60 mins 1.2 oz Fuggles
15 mins 0.64 oz Fuggles
Fermentis Safeale S-04

I'm participating in the Christmas beer exchange discussed in this thread.

So Revvy: I read something about priming with a ginger infused solution. How did you prepare it?

Click to expand...

I did this recipe BIAB but added my wife's homemade ginger snaps ,
The beers tastes great, but I should have cold crashed for a week or more to let the Butter from the cookies settle to the bottom,
You don't want to swirl the bottles to get the last drop!