Ginger beer is a carbonated, sweetened beverage produced in two versions: alcoholic brewed ginger beer (which includes home-brewed) or a carbonated soft drink flavored primarily with ginger and sweetened with sugar or artificial sweeteners. Ginger has long been used as a spice, and its use to flavour a fermented drink may have originated in England in the eighteenth century. By the early twentieth century it was a popular drink in Britain, Ireland, the United States and Canada. Golden ginger ale is a similar carbonated drink that originated in Northern Ireland in 1851, the main difference between the two being in the ale's greater clarity.