Ginger is typically found growing in warmer climates like Asia and Hawaii, but local Carriage House Farm is bucking trend by growing their own.
The North Bend farm plants ginger in late winter, protecting it with a plastic "high tunnel." The plastic tunnel keeps the soil at a comfortable 50 degrees, while the rhizomes sprout through spring and summer. The ginger is harvested in early autumn, and instead of looking like the ginger you see in the supermarket — yellowish with a brown outside skin — Carriage House's ginger is white, pink and extremely tender.
MadTree Brewing Company has contracted a third of the strong-flavored root from Carriage House to be used in their Thunder Snow seasonal winter brew (8.5 percent ABV). The beer — flavored with ginger, obviously, nutmeg, vanilla, hints of cinnamon and a bready malt — will be available at the end of the month.
