Ale vs Lager

The hopped-up pale ale sent to India (IPA as it ultimately became known) would sensibly have been in lower quantities than the porter shipped because the IPA was for, and consumerd only by, the officers and upper classes among the Europeans in India, of which their totals were fewer than the standard troops. It was the troops who drank the porter.

"Large quantities" is a relative term.

 

I will give my reason why most of the expensive beers are ales...As a home brewer..the price for brewing a IIpa or Stout is double what it cost me to brew a German pilsner, etc...to brew a high ABV% OR Hoppy beer requires alot of hops (which are not cheap) and a big malt backbone ( so more grain)

 

What are your energy costs for brewing a German Pilsner?

If you were a commercial brewer, the time it takes to brew lagers also has a cost; an opportunity cost since in the time to produce one batch of lager they could brew multiple batches of ale in those tanks.

Cheers!

 

Bells makes a lager called Quiananon Falls Special lager. It is 6.5%, and American hops are used. Larry Bell says it is expensive to make, as it ties up tanks lagering, then it ties up the tanks more when it is dry hopped. Hops are expensive but a big brewery will pay slightly more for a pound of hops than Homebrewers pay for an ounce.

I make about half lagers at home. Sure they don't have the hop expense, but German malts are more than domestic, and stepping up the starters for a 10 gallon pitch uses a bunch of DME, often a 12 liter or more batch of starter wort to get the pitch rate I want. Chilling to pitch temp, fermenting cold, and lagering use electricity.

As Jack says, there is missed opportunity cost. Lagers don't command much more per glass than an ale. Then again the Q Falls I had last night was $7 per pour, while two Hearted was $5. Some can get a little more. Compare the cost for a big Doppelbock to the DIPA, yeah the IIPA will cost more due to hops, but the malt bill is probably more if you use German malts for the Doppelbock and NA malts for the IIPA.

 

marquis, it would be great if you could add any insight, or correct me where I'm wrong:

Going back to when beer and ale signified two different beverages (hopped and not hopped), porter (being hopped) was considered part of the beer family. As the hop distinction faded, the meanings evolved. Beer became an all encompassing label and the distinction between porter and ale then became one of color. When the meanings evolved yet again, beer remained all encompassing, ale denoted a warm fermentation process, but porter was still considered separate from ale. Why? Why didn't the porter classification evolve alongside the other shifts? Was it any more ingrained a term than beer or ale? I can't imagine that anomalies such as Baltic porters would have prevented this classification shift in the UK.

 

When I say the "vast majority" it's because most of the "beer people" in the world accept the ale/lager division we've been discussing. The "vast majority" of people in the world also use the term beer as the overall name for the malt beverage we love, and understand that both ales AND lagers are beer. Only the British try to claim that ale is not beer - because they're stuck in their outdated and non-functional ancient terminology. Likewise, most of the beer world considers porter to be an ale. Hell, even the anglo-biased sources Marquis provides admit that the only thing that distinguishes a porter from other ales is it's dark color from the roasted malt. Who the hell uses color to determine what family a beer belongs to?? Only the British.

That's why I say the vast majority of the beer world doesn't agree with the British.

 

I never said that ales are not beers.Just that what we have now is derived from two separate distinct families which were called the ale and the beer family.Beer has and had a dual meaning , the inclusive and the specific.Consider "American" which can either mean from the USA or from the American continent.It's simply a matter of context whether the narrow or broad meaning is intended.
Yes, the only thing which distinguishes porter from ales is colour from roasted malt.The only thing which distinguishes batter from wallpaper paste is the addition of a little milk. (I'm referring to wallpaper paste made from flour and water of course)

 

This is my favorite thread so far since I've been on BA. Fuck yes.

 

"Of course it is. Porters derive from the beer family not the ale family."
marquis, Mar 19, 2014

You didn't directly say ale wasn't beer, but you certainly implied it. This is hardly the first time you've claimed that porter was beer, not ale, or that ales are different from beer. It logically follows from that statement that an ale is not beer, according to your definition.

Now that you've finally admitted that the only characteristic that distinguishes porter from other ales is the color, I have to ask why is that single difference enough to justify you British claiming porters are not ales and referring to them separately??
I don't care about the convoluted ancient origins of English terms - I'm talking about the present.

Would you similarly insist a Munich Dunkel was not a lager because of it's dark color?
Would you list them separately as lagers and dunkel?

 

Oh dear, it's really quite simple. There were two sets of brewers each with its own rules, guilds, standards and even barrel sizes.One set brewed ales and the other set brewed beers.Ales were brewed by the former and Porters were brewed by the latter.So to say that porter is derived from the beer family not the ale family is quite easy (it's blindingly obvious for most people) to grasp.That's why Arthur Guinness , an ale brewer, was obliged to bring in the Purser family, beer brewers, when he wished to brew Porter.Beer eventually became a word for all malt liquor and ale became all beer except porter and stout.
Because the two styles existed side by side without apparently causing any reasonable person any difficulty there was no need for them not to sit side by side.They were simply two sorts of beer (using beer in the inclusive sense) and there was no more need to call them all ales than to call them all porters.
You can't escape origins.Everything is the result of the past. That's where names like Porter and Ale came from.Your own nationality and ethnicity can only be determined from what went before.Not because that's what you say you are.
Using your logic there wouldn't be different sorts of cheese,bread or wines. Just because things are made in the same way doesn't prevent their being different.

 

you mention that quite often. Is it to imply that Guinness is less Irish because he hired a brewmaster from London?

 

I don't consider old beer signs from Britain as "proof" your definitions and terms are correct and should be accepted by the rest of the world. Again, I don't care anymore about how your terms originated. It's mildly interesting in a historical sense, but to keep referring to them has become pointless in this discussion.

You spent quite an effort responding to my last post, but managed to completely avoid answering the direct and pointed questions I asked.
Do I need to repost them or will you go back and answer them?

Also, it's not "blindingly obvious for most people to grasp" Many others in this thread have been taking serious issue with your arguments. We don't agree with you.
You're starting to use a condescending tone as well, and I'm beginning to find it irritating.
You might want to step back a bit with it.

 

That thread has been deleted. Don't revive it.

 

Not at all. It's never been in dispute that Stout originated in London. I gave it as an example that an ale brewer didn't brew stout.They were two entirely separate industries.

 

As these are German beers I would leave it for the Germans to decide.It's not for others to tell the originators what they should call it.

 

My questions make an obvious point and are a comparison to the ales and porter seperateness the British maintain. Saying let the Germans decide avoids addressing the point.

 

No it doesn't. My views aren't at issue. The Germans invented the stuff, they should decide for themselves.We invented ales and porters and whatever the logic that's what we decided to call them and likewise it isn't for others to tell us we're wrong.

 

First, it was a comparison to illustrate the similar way you refer to ale and porter, not an attempt to tell the Germans what to call their beer. I certainly don't know how you came up with that interpretation, except to avoid admitting that it makes no more sense to refer to ales and porters as different based on color than it would to refer to lagers and dunkels separately because of its dark color.

Nobody is telling you that you shouldn't continue with your own definitions and terminology in your own country. Thanks to your repeated history lessons, I fully understand how it developed in Britain and it makes sense why you still use those distinctions. The problem is that in this thread, and plenty of others, you've been on a campaign to convince the rest of us that we're all confused and in error with the terms/definitions we use, and your British usage is the only accurate one. You've been singleminded with this anglo-centric attitude. This has been pointed out by others in this thread, it's not just my opinion.

If your attitude was like "Yeah, I realise we Brits have our own unique way of classifying beer, ale, etc. but here's the historical reasons for it. It works for us, but I understand why most of the world uses different terms and definitions.", the discussion would have had a completely different tone.

Again, nobody expects you guys to change your ways. Just don't insist we're all wrong and should fall in line with your system, which isn't shared elsewhere.

 

Whaaaaasuuuuuuppppppp?