Is it just me or do alot of authors confuse mead and ale? Ive been doing alot of reading lately and noticed many authors using them interchangeably. This buggs me a bit, as a homebrewer of mead and not caring for ale.
I admit to knowing little about booze in general, but if I remember right, ale is a type of beer but mead's made from honey, isn't it?
Right, mead uses honey. The most basic recipe for mead is honey water and yeast. Its like calling wine beer or beer wine
Ha! You know, I literally only remember learning that by watching 13th Warrior. Because he was so upset he couldn't get drunk to deal with things until the viking dude was like "It's made from honey!"
That's neat. Like I said, I don't drink and I shamelessly admit that I know only the most basic knowledge of general alcoholic beverages. However, I'm a research junkie so I'd definitely be sure I knew which was which for writing purposes.
Also, this is actually giving me the urge to research. It makes me wonder what alcoholic beverages might be around in my setting, which is a Paleolithic/Neolithic setting. I mean, it's still fantasy, but I like it rooted in some "realism" so now I want to go see what the various tribes and such might be drinking if they do want to celebrate with a bit of drunkness!
I don't drink so I don't care what beverage they're drinking. I am partial to ginger ale though, mostly because root beer is gross and any writer that gives it to minors should be shot. Just hand them a forkin coke!
Native Americans had an interesting collection of different drinks usually based off of fermented grain. An interesting theory is that people who could tolerate alcohol had an advantage because they could get calories from fermented grain which lasted longer in storage than unfermented. If you controlled the spoilage and made sure it turned into wine or a beer like beverage, it would then last much longer.
There's a difference? Haha. I kid, I kid... Semi-related, I've had fun with describing the taste of potions... As for alcohol, I've had mead, beer, and elven wine...
I don't drink, so mead, beer, and ale all taste the same to me. BUT, I understand the difference, and I use all three in my fiction. Generally, different cultures drink different drinks. Personally, I think sugary carbonated drinks don't get enough love in fiction.
Quick, someone do a Fallout or Walking Dead style LitRPG where you can get a buff from slamming down Red Bulls or something!
Mount Hope winery, part of the Pennsylvania Renaissance fair, has a very good honey wine as well as a dynamite PA Dutch spiced apple wine.
These words mean different things in different countries, so you'll need to be more specific to get an accurate answer. But, roughly speaking: Beer is what you get when starch is broken down to sugars by malted grains and then fermented by yeast. Ale is a kind of beer. Ale is beer made with a "top-fermenting" yeast (as opposed to lagers, which use a "bottom-fermenting" yeast). Stout is a kind of ale that typically uses roasted malts or roasted grains. It often has a strong coffee/chocolate flavor, and it's usually got higher alcohol content. Mead is fermented honey. It might also contain fruit, spices, or other additives. Taste ranges a lot, from "dry meads" (more tangy than sugary) to "sweet meads" (more sugary than tangy). Grog is a hot drink with rum and water, and usually spices and/or citrus. Grog's taste depends largely on the spices/citrus you use. All are alcoholic drinks, but beer/ale/stout are the most closely related. Mead has nothing to do with the others, nor does grog. This was totally not stolen from Reddit so there's no need to look it up.
Because it uses spices. The particular kind of pirates made famous in pop culture (you know, the swashbuckling "Caribbean" pirates with peg legs, pet parrots, and eyepatches) are those who stole spices (among other things). Hence why grog is associated with pirates. I'm not really doing it justice, but the history of why grog is so closely associated with pirates is pretty interesting.