Pale Ale can denote a specific style of beer in one context, but in its predominant form it is a generic name for a group of copper-colored, hop-forward, bitter beers. These include English and American pale ales, India pale ales, “double” India pale ales, English bitter (ordinary, special, and extra special), and Belgian pale ales. “Pale ale” originated as a catch-all term for any top-fermented beer that was not dark. Up to the 18th century at least, the bulk of beers produced in England were of a dark brown color, brewed largely from amber and brown malts. Those few beers brewed from paler malts were called pale simply to distinguish them from their darker brethren. Malt drying technology was somewhat crude in those days and the so-called pale malts would have been quite dark compared with modern standards. As a result, pale ales of that time would probably have been of a reddish–amber color. Even today, pale ale malts are malted and kilned so that they are slightly darker than pale lager malts, and pale ales made from them are honey to copper in color, rather than straw yellow.

Pale ale certainly existed before 1700, but even in the 18th century it was not a defined style, as its competitor, porter, had become. It began to become a less vague term as malting methods improved and maltsters were better able to control its color. An important milestone came in 1790 when George Hodgson began to ship pale ale to India. See hodgson, george.

By the first quarter of the 19th century, the Burton-on-Trent brewers had lost their export trade to the Baltic countries as a result of embargoes put in place during the Napoleonic Wars. By this time Hodgson had taken firm control of India exports but had been at odds with the East India Company. So a director of the Company approached Samuel Allsopp in Burton and asked him whether he could brew pale ale for the Indian market. In 1822 the first brew was made, and it was shipped to India in 1823. Burton maltsters supposedly developed a special pale malt for this brew, and certainly the highly mineralized Burton water, whose hardness accentuated hop bitterness in the beer, was admirably suited to the production of what became India pale ale (IPA). While Hodgson did not invent the IPA beer style, he had an impact on its development and made a good trade in IPA until his market position was eventually usurped.

Soon, Burton IPA became popular in England, and brewers from other areas of the country rushed to copy it. IPA was a strong beer, at around 7% alcohol by volume (ABV), but lower-strength versions began to be produced, and these were often referred to simply as “pale ale,” whereas some brewers started to use the term “bitter ale.” In fact, although pale ales took a good share of the beer market in England it was still the darker, more lightly hopped mild ales that dominated. But the grip of mild ales was to continually loosen through the 20th century as pale beers became the norm.

Yet, in large part as a result of raw materials restrictions during the two World Wars, beer strengths declined in England. Accordingly, “bitter,” the weaker version of pale ale, became the most popular beer in the country, until it was overtaken by lager in the last quarter of the 20th century. Bitter itself fragmented into several substyles, with “ordinary” being the weakest, at 3%–4% ABV, “special” and “extra special” covering the range 4.5%–5% ABV, and the oddity of Fuller’s “extra special bitter” weighing in at 5.5% ABV. See extra special bitter (esb).

But pale ale production was not limited to Britain alone. Belgian brewers developed several examples of varying alcoholic strengths. These are more characterized by fruity notes from the distinctive Belgian yeasts used in their production than the malt and hop flavors of British beers. Oddly enough, apart from Cooper’s Sparkling Ale from Adelaide, South Australia, pale ale is rare in the countries of the British Commonwealth.

In the United States, because of the surge of German immigrants bringing lager brewing with them, pale ale did not really become a big factor in the 19th century. It was produced on a modest scale, notably in New England; for example, Ballantine IPA survived into the 1980s. See ballantine ipa.

But around that time the US craft brewing revolution began. These new brewers, with little brewing heritage to draw on, looked to Europe and Britain in particular for inspiration.

Pale ale was simpler to produce and required less capital investment than lager, and most craft brewers opted for it. These were entrepreneurs and inventive people, and simply copying British beers was not enough. They wanted to go back to the roots of pale ale and to explore the possibilities of the wide variety of American hops available to them. The result was that American IPA became a new style; a stronger version was dubbed by some “double IPA,” and the pale ale family of beer styles was lifted and carried forward into the future.

See also american pale ale, english pale ale, and india pale ale.