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I insist not

Six of the finest best bitters (or amber ales, if you insist)

Ale is, by definition, non-hopped. The thing that makes bitter bitter is hops.

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britinkiwi
britinkiwi
5 months ago

You’re not wrong. At least historically. Modern day usage may be a little more flexible.

My host will be pleased that his favourite beers, yummy fresh hopped craft brewed IPA’s, are about to burst on the market in New Zealand.

Had my first hazy fresh hopped at the weekend at MarchFest in Nelson.

Marius
Marius
5 months ago

Ale is, by definition, non-hopped.

Was, but that definition has not applied for hundreds of years.

eg India Pale Ale, both the historic version and aggressive US-style modern interpretations are hopped.

Marius
Marius
5 months ago

I see I managed to essentially repeat britinkiwi’s point. That’s what happens when you dawdle over comments….

I find modern IPAs too cold, too hoppy and too strong most of the time.

Hallowed Be
Hallowed Be
5 months ago

i notice that young’uns very much like their Guinness, Slightly surprises me as i don’t see any of the cinematic level adverts anymore that create just the right image. And then i realise the marketers don’t need to do that, just use the algorithm to target your demographic and click send.

dearieme
dearieme
5 months ago

Apparently when Guinness was first offered for sale in Dublin the Roman Catholic population referred to it as Black Protestant Porter.

A question: there used to be a Protestant working class in Dublin. I don’t think I’ve heard them mentioned in my lifetime. Were they ethnically cleansed at independence?

Bloke in Wales
Bloke in Wales
5 months ago

I find modern IPAs too cold, too hoppy and too strong most of the time.

IPAs are supposed to be very hoppy and quite strong in modern terms. The India part of the name is from when they were shipped to the East India Company troops, and they had to be very heavily hopped (it’s a preservative) to survive the long journey. It turned out the troops liked the taste, and the style continues to be brewed.

dearieme
dearieme
5 months ago

Thanks, Tim. Where then are the apologies and reparations?

They indulge in whining about ethnic cleansing in Palestine without mentioning shshsh! Twats.

Bloke in Germany
Bloke in Germany
5 months ago

Go to An Coirean, arse end of the arse end of arse end of Ireland county Kerry.

The protestant church is on top of the hill. The catholic church is a converted shopfront.

Bongo
Bongo
5 months ago

How did this protestant cleansing in the new Republic work? Were the prots discriminated against in public jobs, housing, persuaded to migrate to UK or USA or was it a bit more in your face with a ban on prot schools, social and sports clubs.
I don’t imagine there were fire bombings or beatings.

bloke in spain
bloke in spain
5 months ago

There were indeed fire bombings & beatings.

Gunker
Gunker
5 months ago

@Dearime,

The classic Irish response is to blame the Catholic church. Just like anything before 1922 was the fault of the English, and anything after the nineties was the EU. The Irish never did anything wrong, never colluded with those in authority, never.

Andrew C
Andrew C
5 months ago

Hops and cannabis are closely related, belonging to the same plant family (Cannabaceae).

So closely related that it’s possible to graft the two plants together. Hops onto cannabis rootstock and vice-versa. However, it seems it’s a myth that doing so can create a hops plant with psychoactive properties.

Bongo
Bongo
5 months ago

Thanks TW and BiS – I didn’t know

Theophrastus
Theophrastus
5 months ago

Beer and ale are both made with grains, water, yeast, and (with a few exceptions) hops. Beers are made with bottom-fermenting yeast strains and fermented at cooler temperatures than ales, which are brewed with top-fermenting yeast strains and are fermented at warmer temperatures. The variety of hops and the type of malt also affect colour and flavour.

RichardT
RichardT
5 months ago

It’s an interesting etymological twist.

16th, 17th centuries beer was the new-tangled hopped drink and ale non-hopped (on the continent often flavoured with herbs, but I think mostly unflavoured in England).

But nowadays CAMRA popularised the use of “real ale” for traditional hopped beers (mostly bitters), and “craft beer” has more recently sprung up as the term for modern experimental styles.

Which means that a drink sold as a beer now has more chance of being flavoured with something other than hops than a drink sold as an ale.

RichardT
RichardT
5 months ago

Hopped beer was seen as a Protestant innovation (allegedly due to the Catholic Church holding a continental monopoly on gruit, the mixture of herbs mostly used across the Channel as the main flavouring in ale before hopping was perfected, but I’m not sure how true that was).

17th century historian John Aubrey thought hops and Protestantism came together, and dated the use of hops in English beer to Henry VIII, quoting the verse:
“Greek, heresy, turkeys and beer
Came into England all in a year”

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