Brown ale Brown ale Brown ale is a style of beer with a dark amber or brown colour. The term was first used by London brewers in the late 17th century to describe their products, such as mild ale, though the term had a rather different meaning today. 18th-century brown ales were lightly hopped and brewed from 100% brown malt. Today there are brown ales made in several regions, most notably England, Belgium and America. Other than being top-fermented and having a darker color than pale beers, brown ales share little in common in terms of flavor profile. Beers termed brown ale
Cock ale Francis Grose's "Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue" (1785), which also calls it provocative. Writing in 1929, William Henry Nugent claimed that Cock ale was a concoction of bread and ale fed to fighting birds. Several authors have theorised that "Cock ale" may have mutated into "cocktail", an American word first used in 1806 whose origin is now lost. Cock ale Cock ale, popular in 17th and 18th-century England, was an ale whose recipe consisted of normal ale brewed inside a container, to which was later added a bag stuffed with a parboiled, skinned and gutted cock, and various fruits