So what exactly is Ale?

Why do people go on about it so much?

and why is it only drunk by men with huge beer guts, silly beards and daft pipes?

For a start Ale is as it says.

It’s ale. The Oxford dictionary describes it thus,

The History of Ale.

Throughout English history ale is mentioned, usually in the same sentence as the words quaffing and amounts. If ancient texts are to be believed, then the only drinks available through out the dark ages were ale and mead.
Ale itself hasn’t changed much since then, when it was probably at its peek. Except that it is a lot thinner, clearer and weaker. Oh yes, and made from different ingredients.

Ale is basically fermented maltose. The people in the dark ages boiled up a lot of malt, strained it, let it cool down and then added some bread so that the yeast in that would start the fermentation. Nice, simple and everybody was doing it. Well, not actually everybody. Men did not brew ale. It was the women who did it. Brewing beer was seen as just another one of the household chores for the wife to do while the husband was off slaughtering people who didn’t believe that there was “only one god and it’s not the one you believe in sonny.” Wives weren’t so much chosen for their good looks back then, for after all it wasn't just pillaging that the men went away to do. No they were chosen for their abilities, to cook, clean, breed and brew beer.
The word Brewster, meaning a woman brewer, came into the English language after Brewer, meaning a man who brews, however because for a man it was a separate job. But for a woman it was part of the housework.

The first public houses came into being around this time as well. For when the men weren’t off dismembering the infidels they sat around getting drunk. But where to sit? Well if you had two mates who both brewed beer, one of them was good at it and one bad, which house would you go to to get drunk? And so the houses where the women brewed the better beer soon became gathering places.

Skip forwards a couple of hundred years and you find something more recognisable as a pub, except it probably had a brewery attached to the back of it. Most pubs used to brew their own beer. If the beer was any good people travelled that little bit further to go there and the pub did a good trade.

Brewers became more adventurous with what they threw into the pot and when someone found out that hops were a great preservative as well as adding that bitter taste, they soon were added to every beer going.
So as you can see there is a lot of history behind ale as a drink and people, being people, like to cling onto the past. Which brings us back to the the beardy weirdies and,

Camra.

The Campaign for Real Ale.

You’ve probably heard about these people. Mention Camra and it conjures up the image of a group of middle aged blokes with big beards and even bigger guts. These guys were trainspotters as kids, never made any friends and are basically very sad individuals.

Well, that is wrong.

Camra is a consumer group. A few blokes were sat in a pub one night in the 1970’s having a few beers, as blokes do and the conversation turned to how hard it was to get a decent pint. Now unlike most ideas that are thought of as good after a couple of beers, this one stayed the following morning and still seemed a good idea so they decided to do something about it. Landlords were talked to, letters were sent and other people became involved. The decline of ale in pubs slowed and turned. It wasn’t till years later that some of the stereotypes joined. There are annoying weirdoes in Camra, but if you happen to meet them, just ignore them. They are in a way akin to the trainspotters who think they work for the railways. Sad individuals. But they are the minority.

So why is it Real Ale?

Quite simply because it is still alive. Keg bitter, as opposed to Real Ale, has been filtered and pasteurised. In plain English, it’s had all the bits taken out. It’s kind of like the difference between full fat and skimmed milk. They’re both milk, but taste completely different. Whilst in the cask in the cellar, Real Ale still has yeast and hop leaves floating in it. It looks cloudy and not really very appealing. But left for a day or two and all those bits settle to the bottom naturally, leaving behind only their flavour. Real Ale, as opposed to Keg bitter, has more body. It tastes a bit fuller, a bit more complete, and in a way it is.

So what goes into Ale?

You name it, it goes in. Not really. The rumours that rats or joints of beef go in are unfounded, that’s cider.

The basic ingredients in Real Ale are;

• Barley Malt
• Hops
• Water

• Coriander
• Carrot
• Honey
• Sweet Gale
• Bog Myrtle
• Fennel
• Cabbage
• Thyme
• Lemon Grass
• Figs
• Oranges
• Lemons
• Bananas
• Lemon
• Elderberries
• Port
• Whisky

But it’s not for everyone, just as full fat milk is to some the only one worth drinking. Whereas others can’t stand the stuff. But as they say, “How do you know you don’t like it until you’ve tried it?” and with over 600 breweries producing in excess of 2000 different real ales in the UK alone, that's an awful lot of trying to do!