British Brewer

Recreating the perfect British Pint

14 December
4Comments

Ale vs Beer

Just a quick post this evening, had a busy evening at my kids school.  I am a Trustee and Treasurer at Inly School in Scituate, MA and we had a long board meeting tonight.

I have noticed from re-reading my posts I use the words beer and ale interchangeably. I think nothing of it, I have always believed ale to be a style of beer, where beer is an all encompassing term for all fermented malt based beverages.  But I appear to be wrong.  I read this great post on the Ale vs Beer by Zythophile on the long battle between ale and beer.  Its a long post covering over 5 centuries of history of the hopped and malted beverage but he is a great writer and I have come to enjoy his essays, taking my beer (or is that ale) geekery to new heights.

On a separate note for all beginners I wanted to highlight the completion of my getting started series.  I am busy working on another series of posts (and fixing some of the old, I made some mistakes that need work) really digging into the various ingredients starting with yeast and moving onto water, hops and malt.

You can find the complete series here.

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  • Kenny

    And I always thought that ale wasn't hopped whereas bitter was.

  • http://www.britishbrewer.com Stephen C Jenvey

    Mr Mutter, I agree. Ale was historically a malt only drink, but at some point the term Real Ale came about which included the English Pale Ale which is a bitter. Wish you could try some of these brews out, if you and the family ever want a holiday state side let me know.

  • Kenny

    And I always thought that ale wasn't hopped whereas bitter was.

  • http://www.britishbrewer.com Stephen C Jenvey

    Mr Mutter, I agree. Ale was historically a malt only drink, but at some point the term Real Ale came about which included the English Pale Ale which is a bitter. Wish you could try some of these brews out, if you and the family ever want a holiday state side let me know.