The word "ale" has a variety of different specific meanings (e.g. beer brewed without hops, or beer brewed using warm fermenting yeast, or beer with a higher alcohol content than lager, or sometimes just any kind of beer). But all of those definitions refer to a type of beer — an alcoholic beverage brewed via fermented grains.
I can see why ginger beer is called that: it was originally brewed and fermented like beer, just with ginger instead of a grain, and did contain as much as 10% ABV (though these days it's not brewed anymore and is non-alcoholic). But I can't find any evidence that ginger ale ever contained alcohol, or was ever brewed like ale.
So how did it get the name ginger ale?
Best Answer
Probably because it was originally a beer as the following extract suggests:
(huffinton.post)