Memories of the 28th Century
The Tragedy of Ale
by , 07-26-2013 at 09:39 AM (3898 Views)
I was planning to write a post on the low quality of American ale, including the output of specialty brewers. To get a little more background I did an online search, and the results all started with “Beer”. This fact is very strong evidence that I have slipped into a different space-time, thus showing more evidence for Everett’s Many Worlds Interpretation of Quantum Theory.
In the world that I came from beer was a fermented malt beverage that was flavored with hops and used a bottom brewing yeast that was similar to bread yeast and had an alcoholic content of from .5% to about 5%. If the alcohol content was higher, then it would be malt liquor or wheat wine. If a brewed malt beverage used a top fermenting, wine yeast, had an alcoholic content from 6 to 12 %, and was not flavored with hops, then it was ale. The online literature often refers to ales being flavored with hops, but that is a sin except for the special case of India Pale Ale. It seems that brewers are making a wide variety of beers and calling some of them ale, even though they are not ales. The Brits revolted against such a revolting situation a few decades ago, but we Americans are still afflicted with low quality beers being passed off as something that they are not.
There are many people who have never had Real Ale; although they have consumed barrels of bilge-wash that was falsely called ale. As far as I can tell, there is no real ale produced commercially in the U.S.A. and damned little elsewhere in the world. Apparently it is more profitable to produce bilge-wash and lie about what it is. Even the so-called India Pale Ale isn’t aged the six months or longer that is necessary, but some people think that a strong bitter flavor is desirable. The flavors in most ales are from malts that are dried in different ways and are from various grains. The subtle flavors of IPA are from a middling strong ale (7 to 9%) that has aged for more than six months.
These days you might find a weak ale that is too weak for any flavor to remain from the malt (too watered down), but you will have a very hard time finding a full strength ale that has the flavor and savor of ale and no hops. Ales may be flavored with almost anything, but hops are a novelty that was only introduced a few hundred years ago, when beer was spread from its origin in Central Europe with its low alcohol content.
There are some traditional ale recipes available online, but you have to search carefully, because Google doesn’t seem to know that beer and ale are not the same thing, but until recently no one would have confused the two. One non-online resource that might be useful is The Home Brewer's Recipe Database: Ingredient Information for Over Two Thousand Commercial European Beers by Les Howarth.
If I had adequate capital, then I would open a brewery that would produce real ales and no beers.
Go to Profile
Mark as Read
