Ale to the selling of beer labeled "strong beer" that had actually been diluted with small beer. In medieval times, ale may have been safer to drink than most water (the germ theory of disease was unheard of, and the sterilizing properties of boiling unknown); however, there is no period evidence that people were aware of this nor that they chose to drink ale for this reason. The alcohol, hops, and some ingredients in gruit used to preserve some ales may have contributed to their lower load of pathogens, when compared to water. However, ale was largely safer due to the
Burton Ale favour of the brewers of Burton ale, to exempt them from the new tax, because they brewed not for home consumption, but exportation. Lord North said the clause would open a door to fraud, and consequently it ought not to be admitted. The motion therefore was rejected." In the 1790s Charles Lamb the writer, John Mathew Gutch the journalist and James White, founder of the UK's first advertising agency, were "in the habit of meeting at the "Feathers" in Hand Court, Holborn, to drink nips of Burton ale, as they were called". White's "Falstaff's letters" turns the "Feathers" into the