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Ale is a type of beer brewed from malted barley using a warm fermentation with a strain of brewers' yeast.〔Ben McFarland, 〕〔M. Shafiur Rahman, 〕 Compared to lager yeasts, ale yeast ferments more quickly, and often produces a sweeter, fuller-bodied and fruitier taste. Most ales contain hops, which help preserve the beer and impart a bitter herbal flavour that balances the sweetness of the malt. ==History of ale== Historically the terms ''beer'' and ''ale'' respectively referred to drinks brewed with and without hops.〔(【引用サイトリンク】title=Oxford English Dictionary Online )〕 ''Ale'' has often now come to mean a bitter-tasting barley beverage fermented at room temperature. In some British usage, however, in homage to the original distinction, the term is only used in compounds (such as "pale ale" (below ) or as "real ale)", a term adopted to differentiate these products from the pressurised beers developed by industrial brewers in the 1960s, and used of warm-fermented unpasteurised ales served from a cask (though not stout or porter). Ale typically has bittering agent(s) to balance the sweetness of the malt and to act as a preservative. Ale was originally bittered with gruit, a mixture of herbs (sometimes spices) which was boiled in the wort prior to fermentation. Later, hops replaced the gruit blend in common usage as the sole bittering agent. Ale, along with bread, was an important source of nutrition in the medieval world, particularly small beer, also known as table beer or mild beer, which was highly nutritious, contained just enough alcohol to act as a preservative, and provided hydration without intoxicating effects. Small beer would have been consumed daily by almost everyone, including children, in the medieval world, with higher-alcohol ales served for recreational purposes. The lower cost for proprietors combined with the lower taxes levied on small beer led to the selling of beer labeled "strong beer" that had actually been diluted with small beer.〔Accum, Friedrich Christian. A treatise on adulterations of food: and culinary poisons, exhibiting the fraudulent sophistications of bread, beer, wine, spirituous liquors, tea, coffee ... and other articles employed in domestic economy and methods of detecting them. Longman, 1822, p. 159, p.170 (read online )〕 In medieval times, ale may have been safer to drink than most water (the germ theory of disease was unheard of, and the sterilizing properties of boiling unknown); however, there is no period evidence that people were aware of this nor that they chose to drink ale for this reason. The alcohol, hops, and some ingredients in gruit used to preserve some ales may have contributed to their lower load of pathogens, when compared to water. However, ale was largely safer due to the hours of boiling required in production, not the alcoholic content of the finished beverage. Brewing ale in the Middle Ages was a local industry primarily pursued by women. “Brewsters,” or "Alewives" as they were called, would brew in the homestead for both domestic consumption and small scale commercial sale. Brewsters provided a substantial supplemental income for families; however, only in select few cases, as was the case for widows, was brewing considered the primary income of the household. The word 'ale' is native English, in Old English ''alu'' or ''ealu'', but ''aloth'', ''ealoth'' in the genitive and dative. It is believed to stem from Proto-Indo-European root *alu-, through Proto-Germanic *aluth-.〔Online Etymology Dictionary, http://www.etymonline.com/index.php?term=ale〕 This is a cognate of Old Saxon ''alo'', Danish, Norwegian, Swedish, Icelandic and Old Norse ''öl/øl'', Finnish ''olut'', Estonian ''õlu'', Old Bulgarian ''olu'' cider, Slovenian ''ol'', Old Prussian ''alu'', Lithuanian ''alus'', Latvian ''alus''.〔William Dwight Whitney, ''The Century Dictionary: An Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language'' vol. 1〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「ale」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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