Farmhouse ale Farmhouse ale Farmhouse ale is an ancient European tradition where farmers brewed beer for consumption on the farm from their own grain, hops, and yeast. Most farmers would brew for Christmas and/or harvest time, but in areas where they had enough grain farmers would use beer as the every-day drink. This was in a time when it was safer to drink beer than water. Farmhouse ale has enormous variation in the ingredients and brewing process used, both of which follow ancient local traditions. Today many microbreweries make beers they market as farmhouse ale, but in most cases the connection with
Pale ale for beer of the type described abroad as "Scotch ale", are "light", "heavy", and "export", also referred to in "shilling categories" as "60/-", "70/-" and "80/-" respectively, dating back to a 19th century method of invoicing beers according to their strengths. The "/-" was the symbol used for "shillings exactly", that is, shillings and zero pence, in the pre-decimal £sd British currency, so the names are read as "60 (or 70 or 80) shilling (or bob) ale". (Although it was normal to express values over £1 in terms of pounds, shillings and pence, which would give, in this example, £3,