How are "ale", "malt liquor", and "barleywine" related to strength?!
How are "ale", "malt liquor", and "barleywine" related to strength?
Answers:
The U.S. regulations about the labelling of beer products were antiquated, but they are changing rapidly. When Prohibition ended, a statute was enacted that prohibited the alcohol content from appearing on beer labels unless required by state law. Nor could they use words like "strong", "full strength", or "high proof". Coors recently challenged this law in court and has won their lower court battles. It is now pending a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. However, some states have regulations that require certain beers to be labelled using other terms that are supposed denote strength without violating the above statute. Consequently some beers are labeled ales, even if they are lagers, due simply to their strength. Texas is one example of this usage. Similarly, "malt liquor" is the appellation attached to strong beers in other states, such as Georgia. Barley wines are strong beers, typically at strengths comparable to wines (8% alcohol by volume and over). However, this is not just an arbitrary term for strength but the actual name of the beer style as well.
In April 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Coors' favor regarding the placement of alcohol percentages on beer labels. Some of Coors' beer labels now include this figure and other brewers are following suit.
they are not they mean what kind of beer they are
you can have a low Alc Ale and a high Malt liquor
Subject: 2-3. How are "ale", "malt liquor", and "barleywine" related to strength?
The U.S. regulations about the labelling of beer products were antiquated, but they are changing rapidly. When Prohibition ended, a statute was enacted that prohibited the alcohol content from appearing on beer labels unless required by state law. Nor could they use words like "strong", "full strength", or "high proof". Coors recently challenged this law in court and has won their lower court battles. It is now pending a ruling by the U.S. Supreme Court. However, some states have regulations that require certain beers to be labelled using other terms that are supposed denote strength without violating the above statute. Consequently some beers are labeled ales, even if they are lagers, due simply to their strength. Texas is one example of this usage. Similarly, "malt liquor" is the appellation attached to strong beers in other states, such as Georgia. Barley wines are strong beers, typically at strengths comparable to wines (8% alcohol by volume and over). However, this is not just an arbitrary term for strength but the actual name of the beer style as well.
In April 1995, the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Coors' favor regarding the placement of alcohol percentages on beer labels. Some of Coors' beer labels now include this figure and other brewers are following suit.
http://www.beerinfo.com/rfdb/faq.html#li...
"Ale" is one of the two main types of beer, with the other being "lager" (most American domestic beers are lagers, where ales are more prevalent in some places like the United Kingdom).
Ales and lagers can both range from weak in alcohol to high in alcohol; it depends on the particular style.
Barleywines are ales, which are usually quite strong, anywhere from 8% to 14% alcohol (the 9.5%-11% range seems to be the most common), whereas most American lagers and English Ales range from 4% - 5% alcohol.
RateBeer has an excellent page describing the many styles of beer:
http://www.ratebeer.com/styleguide.asp...
As mentioned in some of the other answers, the term "malt liquor" is not so much a true style but rather a legal classification due to some US federal and state laws. Wikipedia has a good explanation:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/malt_liquor...