Talk:Ale

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This text is from an old encyclopedia whose copyright has expired. Please feel free to update, expand, remove anachronisms, etc. --KQ

its not very good - feel free to drastically junk it. Justinc 23:49, 5 August 2005 (UTC)[reply]

Is there any source of this etymology? It seems a bit fanciful and there is a similar German word alt meaning 'old' that refers to a top-fermenting kind of beer.

Indeed, there seem to be a number of etymologies suggested. For instance, the book I have here ("Wine and Beermaking: Hints and Recipes" by Ben Turner, 1985) suggests the word entered English from Danish. JulesH 12:09, 27 June 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Answer to your question:

My copy of the OED (1971) has the first reference under the defintion for ale, dated 940: Sax. Leechd. II. 268: "Do healfne bollan ealoď to, and gehǣte Þǣt ealu." I can't translate that, and a couple of the characters of the other words are not quite right, but it clearly contains the word 'ealu.' Berkeleygabi 06:44, 27 July 2007 (UTC)[reply]

Many contributors to this encyclopaedia are incorrectly using the term "lager" when they mean bottom fermented Ale or Beer. There are two main types of yeast - top fermenting yeast and bottom fermenting yeast. In the UK, Ireland and Belgium, the predominant method of brewing uses top fermenting yeast. In Germany and central Europe (Czech Republic and other places) the predominant method uses bottom fermenting yeast.

The term lager is almost exclusively used in the UK and Ireland (possibly in other English speaking countries). It would never be used by a German Brewer to describe a beer. It is used to describe a brewing process - lagering is storing beer until the fermentation has slowed down to a specific point; this is a process that tends to be used for bottom fermented beers; although top fermented beers do have to go through a period of conditioning.

Bottom fermented beers can be light, dark, strong, weak, wheat beers etc... calling them lager is a misnomer.

The products marketed as lager in the UK was inevitably very light and bore a passing resemblance to Pilsner beers, or Budweiser beers (those from the Czech? towns of Pilsen and Budweis respectively). However this was as often as not Top fermented beer, anyway! So to compare bottom fermented beers with lager is an insult to continental brewers.

This is inaccurate. While doing a secondary fermentation at cold temperature is indeed the act of lagering, any beer produced as a result of bottom fermentation is properly called a lager, whether it undergoes the cold storage or not. Whether the root words indicate this or not, every single brewing text I've ever read, (dozens) classifies all top fermenting beers as ales, be it porter, amber or lambic, and all bottom fermenting beer as lagers, be it true Pilsener, or crappy north american lawnmower beer. This is further confirmed by the yeast companies themselves labeling vials and smackpacks of yeast likewise. Even steam beer (or California common if you aren't talking about the venerable Anchor) refers to brewing with lager YEAST at temperatures usually reserved for ales. The word lager doesn't necessarily invoke the character of the beer- the misnomer isn't calling them lager, it's generalizing lagers as having specific characteristics. Same with ales- this article erroneously states in the beginning that ales are sweet and fruity - and while some ale yeast does in fact produce these flavors (Belgium anyone?), brewing techniques, hop additions, and various yeast strains can yield a fiercly bitter beer with no sweetness, or a lager-like crisp brew. You are correct in that this article misses the mark, but ales do in fact include all top fermenting strains, and lagers the reverse. This is not a point of contention among any brewer I've ever met.

I just read in Merriam-Webster's Third New International Dictionary, Unabridged that porter is "a weak stout." So, I'm going to place it below Stout. Let me know if I'm off, though.

Thanks,

Primetime 08:58, 20 November 2005 (UTC)[reply]

"If a farmer have no mead, he shall pay two casks of spiced ale, or four casks of common ale, for one cask of mead." If kept, this probably needs a citation.

Erm, is this correct? "If a farmer have..." nihil 04:58, 18 April 2006 (UTC)[reply]

That's how they used to speak. Our language have moved on. Dw290 11:32, 21 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

This is actually quite correct in modern usage, as well. This is the subjunctive form of the verb "have," which is used in hypotheticals. It's the equivalent to saying "Were I to have no mead...," which is also quite proper grammatically. hoptop 12:00, 17 January 2008

I certainly would not take Webster as the authority of all things beer. I would take the definition of such styles as "stout", "porter", or "pilsner" from such authors as Michael Jackson.

The Czech "Budweiser", which is called Budvar and is of the Czech "pilsner" style, is from the southern Czech town of Ceske Budejovice, or the old German name of "Budweis". Pilsner Urquell, or Plzensky Prazdroj, comes from the western Czech town of Plzen, formally called Pilsen.

Americans who are knowledgeable of beer use the term "lager" to refer to any bottom-fermented beer, be it a pilsner, helles, bock, maibock, Hefeweizen, koelsch, amber (Vienna), schwarzbier, etc.; we also use "ale" to refer to any top-fermented beer, be it pale ale, bitter, stout, porter, etc. Unfortunately, due to decades of dominance of bland, tasteless, light "helles"-derived lager beers, the term "lager" still refers to, in popular usage, such beers.

The passage about the USA legal definition was removed by me. The section was pointless, and added very little (if anything) to the article. 84.68.57.146 01:06, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I would put it back, since it has a well defined content and is interesting to understand worldwide usage of the term. LHOON 05:59, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]

I'm not going to propose it right now, but perhaps merging these two articles would be appropriate? At the moment, this article offers no links to either Real ale or Campaign for Real Ale, both of which are very relevant. Yet, personally, I'd like to see the articles remain separate, but I'm not sure in quite what way to distinguish them. DWaterson 18:39, 19 October 2006 (UTC)[reply]

OK, ignore this, there has been no consensus on Talk:Real ale. DWaterson 21:52, 6 December 2006 (UTC)[reply]

In the US lagers are by far more popular. Bud, Miller, Corona, and Heineken lagers are the most popular and common beers in the US, the only ale thats extremely common in the US is Guinness. Now I mean you can find them, but the dominant style of beer in the US is Lagers.

- Guiness isn't an ale, but I certainly agree that Ale is absolutely positively not anywhere close to being the most popular type of beer in the US, or Germany for that matter. Britain is the only place I can think of where it is decidely dominant. Budweiser, MGD, Coors, and then all the popular imports people enjoy like Carlsberg, Corona, Heineken, Stella, etc. etc. all standard pale lagers. Not sure where one would find any statistical data on this matter, but it's clearly not correct.

I found the geographical comments a bit odd also. I could see where the "Eastern Canadian" comment might have come in because of the popularity of Keiths IPA, although I don't know about 'predominance' given the number of other types of popular beer. I'm also not quite sure how much of an "IPA" Keiths really is - I don't mind the stuff myself but it doesn't seem especially hoppy or ale-y. But what I thought was really odd was that Canada was geographically delimited, east-west, while the US was just mentioned wholesale; surely if we're going to specify parts of geographically large countries, the same should be done for the US (and possibly Britain and Germany.)

I think a regional popularity mention is actually an excellent idea, but it ought to be backed up with some sort of a source - something from an industry survey, magazine, or something. I know the BBC reported on a drop in lager consumption in the UK so it's clear that the minutiae of which beers are popular and where is actually made public sometimes. 142.177.43.73 00:25, 2 September 2007 (UTC)[reply]