ealu

The Old English word ealu meant a fermented grain drink brewed without hops. It descended from Proto-Germanic *aluth-, which likely traces back to a Proto-Indo-European root meaning 'bitter' or 'intoxicating.' The Sumerians brewed beer by 4000 BCE, but the Germanic peoples had their own brewing traditions, and their word for the product was ancient.

In Anglo-Saxon England, ale was the universal drink. Water was unsafe, milk spoiled, and wine was a Mediterranean luxury that rarely survived the Channel crossing. Monks brewed ale in their monasteries. Villages organized communal brewing sessions called ale-feasts. The alewife — a woman who brewed and sold ale — was one of the few independent economic roles available to women in medieval England.

Hops changed everything. Continental brewers had been adding hops to their brew since the 9th century, and the hopped drink was called 'beer' (from Latin bibere, 'to drink'). When hopped beer reached England in the 1400s, English drinkers drew a hard line: ale was unhopped, beer was hopped. The distinction lasted centuries. Ale meant tradition. Beer meant foreign innovation.

That distinction dissolved by the 1700s. Today ale refers to a top-fermented style rather than the absence of hops, and every pint of ale contains the ingredient that once disqualified it from the name. The word survived its own definition changing underneath it.