This is the recipe for the latest beer I’ve brewed, a light summertime-style wheat ale with candied ginger. It was a bit spontaneous as my goal was originally to brew Randy Mosher’s “Summer Ale, What-If Version” from Radical Brewing (though the recipe first appeared online here), but the Brew Shop was out of the dried wheat extract I needed. So I switched gears and the result is my Ginger Wheat Ale.

It actually turned out quite nice, a good, light beer (4.33% alcohol by volume) with sweet ginger notes—not unlike a ginger ale. I used candied ginger from Trader Joe’s (something like $1.99 for an eight ounce bag), and it gives a good result I think.

As always, this recipe is for a five gallon extract batch.

• 7 pounds liquid wheat extract
• 0.5 pounds 10°L Crystal malt
• 1.5 ounces Willamette hops (5.1% alpha acid) for 60 minutes
• 1 ounce candied ginger (chopped up) for 5 minutes
• 0.25 ounces coriander for 5 minutes
• Yeast: 1 package Munton’s dry yeast

Pretty easy recipe. Additionally, when I racked this to the secondary, I added another ounce of chopped up candied ginger and let that sit for another two weeks before bottling.

Original gravity was 1.048, final gravity was 1.015 for an alcohol (as I mentioned) of 4.33% by volume. Loose estimates of other numbers give a color of 4 SRM (not accurate, it’s darker than that) and 28 IBUs.