Ale vs Lager

marquis, your info above was great in helping me to understand the answers to some of questions below.

I know I was asking too much of you to convey why something went in one direction rather than another. Who knows? I promise I wasn't trying to rile you up like Tut.

It's a little odd that at times the various definitions stood for what the other wasn't: hopped vs not hopped, pale vs dark... but then the boxes lost some of that particular logic: warm fermentation vs cool fermentation vs roasted malt. Nonetheless, I certainly have no issue accepting this line of thought - it still makes sense and I definitely don't subscribe to the notion that some in the UK are doing it "wrong." We'd all be fortunate if something this "simple" was the worst of the tangled lineage of beer.

 

The English invented Ale, or the English just simply invented the word "ale" to describe a particular type of fermented malt drink?

 

And yet all of this really only matters to insatiable dullards who right about beer. Most I think are here for the banter

It's a good thing Kolsch beer is not setting the world on fire

 

Another interesting aspect of the history behind the two terms is the history of coke dried malt vs wood-fire dried malt, and air dried malt. Prior to hopped beer being imported to England, and prior to coke being used as a kilning-fuel, were English brewers using solely wind or air dried malt, or did they also use dark wood-dried malt to brew their ale? Did beer, apart from introducing hops to England, also introduce dark malts? My guess would be no, and that dark colored ales were being brewed in England, just as dark colored top fermented beers were being brewed elsewhere at the time in northern Europe.

 

It's more a matter of how the separate brewing traditions developed.Ales went from unhopped to lighter hopped to fully hopped pale brews. That's as I say why by 1820 or so we had "Pale Ale prepared for India" and later IPA , clearly by then at least some ales were getting their full quota of hops.
Porter of course began its life without benefit of roast malt as they were simply brewed from brown malt.After patent black malt was introduced in 1819 brewers began using pale malt coloured with roast malt.This was at least partly because it was cheaper.

Ale as we know it , certainly. Pale Ale is uniquely English, nowhere else successfully brewed a pale beer for a couple of centuries . Porter originated in London.

 

I am uncertain how to use the term “invent” when it comes to words.

You might be interested in the etymology of the word ale (see below). You can see that the word most ‘recent’ to ale was the Proto-Germanic word “aluth”. It is often mentioned that there is no German word for “ale” but some time ago (when German was termed Proto-Germanic) there was the word “aluth”.

“ale (n.) Old English ealu "ale, beer," from Proto-Germanic *aluth- (cf. Old Saxon alo, Old Norse öl), perhaps from PIE root meaning "bitter" (cf. Latin alumen "alum"), or from PIE *alu-t "ale," from root *alu-, which has connotations of "sorcery, magic, possession, intoxication." The word was borrowed from Germanic into Lithuanian (alus) and Old Church Slavonic (olu).

In the fifteenth century, and until the seventeenth, ale stood for the unhopped fermented malt liquor which had long been the native drink of these islands. Beer was the hopped malt liquor introduced from the Low Countires in the fifteenth century and popular first of all in the towns. By the eighteenth century, however, all malt liquor was hopped and there had been a silent mutation in the meaning of the two terms. For a time the terms became synonymous, in fact, but local habits of nomenclature still continued to perpetuate what had been a real difference: 'beer' was the malt liquor which tended to be found in towns, 'ale' was the term in general use in the country districts. [Peter Mathias, "The Brewing Industry in England," Cambridge University Press, 1959]”

Cheers!

 

So you invented Pale ale.

 

I think generic ale was invented a very long time ago ! Most peoples living in cool temperate climates would have fermented malted barley and drunk the results and that could be called ale.But perhaps not as we know it today. "Pale Ale" was coined to describe the result of brewing with pale malt.Again, it could be argued that ancient sun dried malt predated anything here. But the use of coke fired kilns from 1600-ish put pale malt on the map and that's really where pale ale began as we know it now.

 

That's so exciting - a Warwicks poster I've never seen before.

 

No.

 

Tut / Marquis - your stamina levels are intimidating.

 

I'm taking a well needed breather. I'll concede to Marquis on stamina. For now - -

 

Of course they have great stamina: they are like a wrestling tag team!

Next comes the cage match with folding chairs!

Cheers!

 

I'm with this dude. He's been drinking beer since not only before I was born ... try 21 YEARS before I was born.

Look at the damn sign in the photo!!! It says "ales & stouts" -- CLEARLY differentiating between an "ale" and a "stout" even though we consider them the same.

This shouldn't be that hard ...

 

Well, you probably didn't read the whole thread. the issue isn't what was written on a sign many years before "that dude" was born himself, but how the definitions have evolved. Not one single person has debated that they WERE differently named.

 

Of course it was relative but there simply weren't that many British in India (whatever their class) to drink a lot of beer.A few thousand barrels (6000 in 1820 and 20000 in 1840)exported out of some millions of barrels brewed is a modest amount.

 

Here's an excerpt from the Canadian government , note the date;
"The Government of Canada announced in its 2014 federal budget that it intends to modernize the compositional standards for beer under the Food and Drug Regulations. Recognizing that certain provisions in the Food and Drug Regulations are not maximizing the potential for growth and innovation in the beer industry, the government will be updating these compositional standards to account for new styles of craft beer in the market.

EXISTING COMPOSITIONAL STANDARDS

Under the existing compositional standards, a narrow list of permitted ingredients for standardized alcoholic beverages like beer, ale, stout and porter is set out in sections B.02.130 and B.02.131 of the Food and Drug Regulations.

 

Not sure why you quoted me on this. I am fully aware that parts of the world still refer to that great liquid stuff we drink as beer, ale, stout and porter. My post was in reference to the previous posters mention of an old sign, and the 7+ pages of dialogue about how the terms have changed (obviously for some, not all).

I wasn't debating if there is still a difference in definition. This conversation will just lead us full circle. Those who fall under her queens majestry might still call it beer, ale, lager, etc and many other's don't. My point was that an old sign doesn't mean that it is still universally held true. I have a poster that lists Pluto as a Planet, so it MUST be considered a planet still today, right?

 

Thanks for that link. I hope folks read it. I hope most would consider Martyn Cornell an authoritative source.

It is not about being right or wrong but reading/researching credible information.

We may not all agree in the end but as long as the discussion is framed by accurate sources and not IMO or the umpteenth rewrite of unsubstantiated internet junk.

Great discussion.

 

If I posted a British sign for a "petrol" station that also sold "tyres", would you exclaim "look at the damned sign in the photo!!! - it CLEARLY shows that our words, gasoline and tires, are wrong" ?

Just to establish my credentials with you, I've been drinking beer since 1966 and craft beer since the late '80's.