Alcohol-Free Shandy Gaff, Ginger Beer and Alcohol-Free Ale
Reader ratingsTerrington’s 1869 shandy gaff made without alcohol: a 0.0% ale topped up with ginger beer in equal parts, poured cold.
- Recipe makes
- 1 tall glass, about 2 cups
- Prep
- Total
Chill the alcohol-free ale and the ginger beer for a few hours first. The drink takes a minute to pour.
Alcohol-free shandy gaff in a pewter tankard and a faceted tumbler, with a stoneware ginger-beer bottle on a garden table.
The story behind the recipe
This is the Shandy Gaff with the alcohol taken out of the ale: equal parts of a 0.0% ale and ginger beer, poured cold. William Terrington’s recipe of 1869 asks for “good ale” and a bottle of ginger beer, and nothing else, so changing the ale is the only change. Made with a 5% ale, the original comes to about 2.5% alcohol; this one has none.
No period version
We haven’t found a Victorian shandy gaff without alcohol. Temperance drinkers of the time had other ways round beer: the bottled herb and ginger “beers” sold as non-alcoholic, many of which held a little alcohol after all, and the street fountains whose ginger beer had none, told in What Were Victorian Non-Alcoholic Beers? The shandy gaff itself was a beer drink from the start. Oxford students knew it by 1853, when Cuthbert Bede’s comic novel The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green has its freshman boast of learning to make it alongside sherry cobbler and bishop. This glass is a modern answer, made possible by alcohol-free ale.
Read more about this recipe
Choosing the bottles
Look for an ale labeled 0.0%. A label that says only “alcohol-free” or “dealcoholized” can still mean up to 0.5%. Use a ginger beer sold as a soft drink, since some bottled ginger beers are brewed to full strength; check the label for its alcohol. With both at 0.0%, the glass has no alcohol in it. One cup of each makes a tall glass; Terrington’s full measure, a pint of ale to a bottle of ginger beer, fills two.
Recipe makes: 1 tall glass, about 2 cups
Ingredients
For 1 tall glass, about 2 cups. Quantities are shown as written.
Quantities as written here, for 1 tall glass, about 2 cups.
- Alcohol-free ale (0.0%), chilled8 fl oz
- Ginger beer, chilled8 fl oz
Measurement notes
Ingredients as written here
- 8 fl oz alcohol-free ale (0.0%), chilled
- 8 fl oz ginger beer, chilled
Equipment
Tall glass or tankard, about 20 fl oz
Instructions
Pour the cold alcohol-free ale into a tall glass or tankard.
Top it up slowly with the cold ginger beer, pouring down the side of the tilted glass so it keeps its fizz. Don’t stir. Serve at once, with no ice.
Nutrition
130calories per serving
- Recipe makes
- 1 tall glass, about 2 cups
Estimated from typical label values for 0.0% ale (about 20 kcal per 100 ml) and ginger beer (about 35 kcal per 100 ml), for one 480 ml glass.
Recipe notes
When adjusting quantities
Keep alcohol-free ale and ginger beer in equal parts, and pour each glass separately.
Notes
Quantities mentioned in these notes don’t change when you adjust the batch.
The alcohol-free ale replaces Terrington’s “good ale,” and equal parts is our choice, since he doesn’t give the size of his ginger-beer bottle. Any style of 0.0% ale or bitter works. For a homemade ginger beer, mix the syrup from our alcohol-free ginger beer, the fountain way with lemon juice and soda water, then use it in place of the bottle.
Scaling changes the ingredients only; glassware, ice and timings need their own judgment. To adapt this recipe further, try the recipe tool at TuneMyRecipe (opens in a new tab), our sister site.
Sources and attribution
A modern alcohol-free adaptation of “Shandy Gaff” in William Terrington, Cooling Cups and Dainty Drinks (London and New York: George Routledge and Sons, 1869), p. 187
See the original pages (scan at Internet Archive) (opens in a new tab)
Recipe details
- Drink
- Alcohol-freeMocktail
- Drink family
- Sodas & Soft Drinks
- Region
- British
- Era
- 19th century
- Source decade
- 1860s
- Base
- Beer & ale
- Difficulty
- Easy
- Occasion
- Dry January
- Season
- Summer