Ale
2 of the 6 encyclopedias on this shelf carry an entry for Ale. Both are reproduced below, so you can see where they agree and where they differ.
Aiton's Encyclopedia (1910)
a fermented liquor akin to beer. "Ale, as the term is generally understood, is a pale liquor brewed from lightly-dried malt, and abounding more or less in undecomposed saccharine matter and the bitter and fragrant principles of the hop." Ale is a favorite beverage in England, corresponding to the beer of Germany. Formerly homemade ale was brewed under the direct management of the housewife. Ale differs from the stronger alcoholic liquids in that only a small portion of the sugar is changed by the action of yeast into alcohol. If bottled, however, or allowed to stand in a barrel, fermentation is likely to resume. The ale sharpens, cures, becoming mild ale in a few days, pale ale in a month or two, and strong ale in not less than a year. British ales contain from one to eight per cent of alcohol. See Yeast ; Brewing ; Beer
Collier's New Encyclopedia (1921)
the current name in England for malt liquor in general before the introduction of "the wicked weed called hops" from the Netherlands, about the year 1524. The two names, ale and beer, are both Teutonic, and seem originally to have been synonymous. In the eastern counties of England, and the over greater portion of the country, ale means strong, and beer, small, malt liquor; while in the W. country, beer is the strong liquor and ale the small. The ales of Edinburgh, Wrexham, and Alloa have a high reputation. Burton ale is the strongest made, containing as much as 8 per cent. of alcohol; while the best brown stout has about 6 per cent., and table-beer only 1 or 2 per cent. India pale ale differs chiefly in having a larger quantity of hops.
What Has Changed in the Last Century
Aiton's 1910 definition rests on colour and sugar content, but the line brewers now draw is biological: ale is fermented warm with top-fermenting yeast, lager cold with bottom-fermenting yeast, a distinction only fully understood after Emil Christian Hansen isolated pure lager yeast at Carlsberg in the 1880s. Collier's called Burton ale "the strongest made" at 8 per cent alcohol; that would now be an ordinary strong ale, since imperial stouts routinely pass 12 per cent and freeze-concentrated novelty beers have been sold above 50. American ale brewing was ended outright by Prohibition in 1920 — the year before Collier's wrote — and did not properly return until the craft revival of the 1980s, which resurrected exactly the styles these entries list, above all India pale ale, now the best-selling craft style in the world. Of the reputations Collier's cites, Burton still brews, while the great ale trades of Alloa and Wrexham have largely gone.
Written for this edition, 2026.