If you look in the OED (I'm not bothering to at this point, so feel free to contradict me), you'll find that "ale" is the Danish word for beer, brought over to England by the Danish invaders, and ever since that happened we have been inventing distinctions. At one point it had to do with whether it had hops in it. In the 1950s, IIRC, California law decreed that you had to call it ale if you ran the alcohol content above a certain percentage. There was a wonderful, expensive import called Ballarat ale that was considered appropriate for celebrations.

Merry Christmas, anyway. %^)