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
Parish ale not seldom the feast, designed to begin and end in a day, was protracted into a demoralising debauch of a week's or even a month's duration. Parish ale The Parish ale or church ale was a party or festivity in an English parish at which ale was the chief drink. These were typically fundraising occasions for the parish, which might include music, dancing and other activities. Very common in the later Middle Ages, they encountered some opposition after the English Reformation, though some survived until modern times in some form. The word "ale", in the sense of an ale-drinking party,