What really is the difference between "Ale" and "Beer"?!
anyone also care to tell me about differences between"Pilsner" and "Stouts" etc. as well?
Thanks for your answers!
Answers: and what are their different origins?
anyone also care to tell me about differences between"Pilsner" and "Stouts" etc. as well?
Thanks for your answers!
Ale and beer are one in the same. Beer breaks down in to a couple of very broad categories, one being ale the other being lager you could argue a third breakdown of hybrid styles too I suppose. The distinction between the two is loosely based on the yeast strains used. Lagers are fermented at colder temperatures (for a longer period of time) with a "bottom fermenting" yeast strain while ales ferment warmer with "top fermenting" yeast strains. As a guesstimate "ale" encompasses 90% of all beer styles.
Pilsener is a very specific variety of lager originating in Pilsen Germany. It's well known for the use of Saaz hops and it's overall clean and crisp flavor profile.
Stouts are a rich beer which results from the use of "high kilned" malts which is basically like the French roast (coffee) of the barley malt world. These high kilned malts lend rich burnt and roasted flavors to the beer as well as its dark color. Stouts have greatly diverged in the last 10-20 years though, American varieties are generally more robust and hoppy whereas English varieties tend to be a little more subtle.
EDIT:
Jalford gets and "A" for effort but a lot of that information provided was slightly innaccurate.
Beers from Belgium are also Belgian beers, not Belgium beers. Sorry that's a little pet peeve of mine.
EDIT:
I tell you what a lager is at the beginning of my answer.
Stouts have the wheat burned before it goes in the vat hence why it is so dark... like guiness. Stout and porter are dark beers made using roasted malts or roast barley. A modern pilsener has a very light, clear colour from pale, really pale up to a golden yellow, and a distinct hop aroma and flavour.
MY WAFFLE ON THE SUBJECT OF BEER AND ALE,
BELOW WHICH YOU WILL FIND LINKS GIVING MORE EDUCATED INFORMATION
Ale is the English method of brewing, using hops and barley. Beer is the German method of brewing, using very much the same ingredients. Beer travels and can be bottled, so too can English ale. The most famous and strongest English ale, about 5.5% is any light ale. This was originally brewed in the 19th century for transportation to India and is sometimes called India Light Ale.
The origins of the word BEER : -
beer and brewing -- Britannica Student Encyclopaedia
The origin of the word beer is obscure; it may come from the Hebrew word for grain
... the Saxon word for barley (bere), or the Latin bibere (meaning to drink).
http://student.britannica.com/ebi/articl... - Cached
Origins of the word ALE: -
Michael Jackson's Beer Hunter - Did Jesus turn water into beer?
In English, the word ale predates beer. In the 1500s, the English used the word
... and you have brewed wort (from a Germanic word meaning a plant or root. ...
http://www.beerhunter.com/documents/1913... - Cached
Homebrewing "Real Ale"
Serious contortions are required to make an ale unreal. ... Filtration and
pasteurization are primarily what make ale unreal, and while conceivable for the ...
http://www.allaboutbeer.com/features/rea... - Cached
How to Make Beer - Instructables - DIY, How To, food
So, you've considered brewing your own beer but you're not yet willing to drop
the cash for the entry level kit just yet. With a few simple pieces of...
http://www.instructables.com/id/Make-Bee... - Cached
YouTube - How to make Beer (1 of 4)
Buy FULL DVD here: http://www.google.com/base/a/aboyproduct...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a8yilRn5o... - Cached
Taken from
http://www.realbeers.ie/articles.aspx
Beer is an alcoholic drink made from fermenting a cereal, or mixture of cereals, with hops. Typically, beers are made from water, malted barley, hops, and fermented by yeast. Enzymes in the yeast react with sugars in the grains to produce alcohol and other chemicals. Water is an important component of the mix and in fact many beer styles are influenced or even determined by the characteristics of the water in the region.
Barley malt is the most widely used owing to its high enzyme content (which facilitates the breakdown of the starch into sugars) but other malted and unmalted grains are commonly used, including wheat, rice, maize, oats, and rye. Hops are a relatively recent addition to beer, having been introduced only a few hundred years ago. They contribute a bitterness that balances the sweetness of the malt.
ALE
Ale is general name for beer made with a top-fermenting yeast, ie the yeast floats on top of the brew. Prior to the 1800s this was the way all beer was made, so strictly all beers were ales until quite recently.
PILSNER
http://www.allaboutbeer.com/style/24.3-p...
The introduction, in 1842, of the clear golden lager in Plzen, Bohemia, was so revolutionary that it left breweries scrambling for years to produce a similar product to compete. All golden lagers are offspring of the original pilsner. Hoppy, aromatic, and pleasantly bitter, with a clean and soft malt backbone, pilsners are satisfying, thirst quenching and appetizing.
LAGER
Lager might be the world’s most popular type of beer but it is a relatively recent invention. While man has been brewing beer since the Stone Age it was only in the 15th century that German brewers discovered that storing their beer in caves for the summer kept it from going sour. Their observations were that the yeast sunk to the bottom of the barrels and the cooler temperatures slowed or stopped further fermentation.
WHEAT BEER
Wheat beer is as you would expect beer made predominantly from wheat rather than the more commonly used barley. The beer is lighter, both in colour and mouth-feel and has a incredible acidity. Wheat beer is usually top fermented and hence an Ale.
STOUT & PORTER
The essential characteristic of stout and porter is the high proportion of roasted unmalted barley used in the process. This gives the drink its bitter taste and dry palatte.
Originally Porter was a mix of dark and pale Ale, drunk by London porters, but eventually the name stuck to drink invented by brewers in the early 18th century. They used roasted barley and roasted malt to create a dark rich brew deemed just the ticket for the working man! Stout is a derivative of Porter, invented by Guinness in Ireland, who had taken a London porter recipe and ‘improved’ it to make it richer and ‘stouter’, hence the name.
The creamy head on stout is a modern phenomenon. The traditional head was formed by the protein component of the drink being pushed to the surface by the natural fizz produced by fermentation. Today stouts get their heads courtesy of the nitrokeg system.
BELGIUM BEERS
Belgium is the home of beer and its styles deserve special mention. The main types include:
Trappist Beers
Trappist ales are beers brewed by or under strict control of Trappist monks, within the walls of their Monasteries, according the rules of Strict Observance, as laid down by St. Benedictus, dating from the Middle Ages. There are only six Trappist Monasteries in the world, all in Belgium, that brew beer and can use the legally protected ''Authentic Trappist product'' logo. Each Monastery has it own style of beer, varying in colour, taste and strength, so it is difficult to compare beers from the different Monasteries, besides the fact that they are brewed in a Trappist Monastery. They are however all top fermented, full-bodied bottle conditioned beers, with an alcohol volume between 6.2 and 11.5 %.
Abbey Beers
Abbey Beers are close cousins of the Trappists. Only Trappist Cistercian monastery brewed beer can carry the Trappist name. However many other monasteries got into the commercial brewing business in the late 19th century under the more generic Abbey style. These are typically bottle conditioned ales.
Lambic beers
Traditional Lambic, typical to the region around Brussels in the Zenne valley, is a spontaneous fermented beer, made from a mixture of barley and wheat, which is matured in oak casks. No yeast is added at any stage of the brewing process, but instead micro-organisms cause a natural fermentation during the cooling of the wort in the open copper baths. Lambic can either be drunk on its own or used to create other beers like Gueuze, Faro and Fruit beers.
Fruit beers
Fruit was traditionally added to beer to give it a softer texture and sweeter taste. Nowadays with the variety of fruit flavoured beers, they have become a style of their own, varying in colour, taste and alcohol strength and more in particular the beer, which is used as base. This will determine not only the alcohol content, but also the character and background flavour of the fruit beer.
White Beers
White or wheat beers are light, easy-drinking, unfiltered hazy-yellow coloured beers, made from a mixture of raw wheat and malted barley (sometimes oats are added), seasoned with Coriander and Curacao orange peels, with a refreshing fruity-lemony taste and pleasant lingering spicy aftertaste. Original from the area South of Brussels near the village of Hoegaarden, where Pierre Celis revived this style. Alcohol volume between 4.5 and 5.5%.
AleSmith, I couldn't have said it better myself...
I agree with the A for effort for the one poster, but the glaring innacuracies were too much for me!
The other two were very very off...
Here's another great resource if you'd like to learn more about beer styles...
http://www.bjcp.org
Cheers!
There are just two types of beer - Ales and Lagers.
Ale is a type of beer