The word ale, which emerged in English more than a thousand years ago, might be distantly related to aluminum: both words possibly derive from the Indo-European alu, meaning bitter. Bitterness pertains to ale because it’s a bitter beverage, especially in comparison with another ancient drink, mead, which is made from honey. Bitterness pertains to aluminum because that metal derives its name from the Latin alumen, a mineral salt now known as alum, which literally means bitter salt. On the other hand, ale may have arisen from another Indo-European source, one that is connected not with bitterness but with sorcery and intoxication. That Indo-European source might also be the ancestor of the word hallucinate. In Old English, ale was also used to denote a party where large amounts of the beverage were consumed. This sense of the word contributed to bridal, which was formed by compounding bride and ale: in other words, a bridal was originally an ale-party held to honour a new wife. Other compounds have also appeared over the centuries. In the sixteenth century an ale-dagger was a knife worn in anticipation of a drunken brawl, and in the nineteenth century an ale-score was a skinker’s tally of how many ales had been purchased by a customer. Much more recently, the term ale-goggles has arisen to denote the phenomenon of perceiving someone to be more attractive after you’ve downed a few pints.
An alcoholic beverage brewed by rapid fermentation from malt with the addition of hops.
This type of alcoholic beverage is created through a process of brewing that involves malt and hops. The name used to describe this beverage is typically limited to the malt liquors or beers that are lighter in color, although in the past, it was used more broadly to describe all types of malt beer prior to the introduction of hops.