Franklin & Sons Brewed Ginger Beer
A ginger beer that genuinely is brewed. The ingredients carry a non-alcoholic ferment of malted barley alongside ginger extract, lemon juice and hops, which puts it closer to a soft beer than to a flavoured soda.
Quick Facts
Flavour Profile
Primary Flavours
Tasting Notes
Root-forward heat with the rounded depth brewing gives: fire that builds through the sip rather than spiking and vanishing.
Storage & Handling
Keep cool and chill before opening. Once opened it should be finished, since the carbonation goes first and the malt body reads flat without it.
Usage
Poured over ice in a Moscow Mule or a Dark ’n’ Stormy, where the malt gives the drink a body most ginger beers cannot. It comes in 275ml bottles and 250ml cans, so one container is one drink.
Brewed, and the Label Backs It Up
Plenty of ginger beers use the word without doing the work. This one lists a non-alcoholic ferment of water, malted barley extract and ginger extract, so a fermentation genuinely takes place, and it lists barley malt and hops besides. Hops on a soft drink ingredients list is unusual enough to be a signal in itself, since they are there for bitterness and aroma exactly as they would be in beer. The result reads maltier and rounder than a carbonated ginger drink, with the ginger arriving over a base rather than over water.
Extract, Not Root
One precision worth keeping. The marketing says natural root ginger and the ingredients say ginger extract, which is not the same claim. An extract carries the flavour compounds without the material, so there is no root particulate suspended in the bottle. That is a straightforward way to build a drink and not a criticism, but it does mean the cloudiness and the body here come from the ferment and the malt rather than from ginger solids, which is the opposite of how most cloudy ginger beers work.
Barley Means Gluten
Malted barley is in the bottle, so this is not a gluten-free drink, and that is worth stating plainly because most soft drinks are and nobody expects to check a mixer. Anyone avoiding gluten needs a different ginger beer, and Franklin & Sons’ own ginger ale is gluten free if the brand is the preference. It is a consequence of doing the brewing properly rather than of an additive, which makes it an honest trade rather than a flaw in the product.
Sugar, Stevia and Strength
It runs at 18.4 kcal and 4.4 grams of sugar per 100ml, which is roughly half what a conventional ginger beer carries, and the ingredients show why: sugar is joined by steviol glycosides, a sweetener taken from the stevia plant. Lemon juice from concentrate at 2.5% sharpens it further. The practical effect in a Mule is that the drink wants more lime than usual rather than less, because the bottle is not sweetening it for you the way a full-sugar ginger beer would.
Pro Tip
Brewed ginger beer builds heat through the glass: pour the mule slightly less fiery than you want it to finish.
Top Tips
- Check the label if gluten matters. Malted barley is in this one, unlike most ginger beers.
- Add extra lime in a Mule. At 4.4 grams of sugar per 100ml it will not sweeten the drink for you.
- Look for hops on the ingredients. It is the clearest sign that the brewing claim is a real one.
Possible Substitutions
- Fever-Tree Ginger Beer: the same job, the house choice is yours
History & Context
Ginger beer is a British invention, brewed and exported since the Georgian era, and Franklin & Sons brew theirs in that lineage: fermented root, real cloud, fire with depth. The house has bottled soft drinks since 1886; the ginger beer is the tradition doing what it always did.
Common Questions
What does brewed mean on a ginger beer?
That a fermentation happened, rather than a flavouring being added to carbonated water. Here the ingredients name a non-alcoholic ferment of malted barley extract and ginger extract, alongside barley malt and hops. Many drinks called ginger beer skip all of that, so the word is worth checking.
Franklin & Sons or Fever-Tree ginger beer?
Different drinks. Franklin & Sons is genuinely fermented, carries malted barley and hops, and runs at 4.4 grams of sugar per 100ml. Fever-Tree is a carbonated soft drink with ginger root in it at 7.9 grams. The Franklin is maltier and drier, and the Fever-Tree hotter and sweeter.
Which drinks want it?
The Moscow Mule and the Dark ’n’ Stormy, where the malt gives a body most ginger beers lack. It also holds up against an aged rum served long. It suits anyone who finds conventional ginger beer too sweet, since it carries roughly half the sugar.
Why is it cloudy?
The ferment and the malt rather than ginger solids, which is worth knowing because it is the reverse of most cloudy ginger beers. The ginger is present as an extract with no root particulate to settle out, so what is in suspension came from the brewing.
Often Used With
Guide by Jerry Can Spirits