This sin't really true. First, there was decent drinking water in most towns and villages in medieval Europe. Most towns had "masters of conduit" and water carr

This sin't really true. First, there was decent drinking water in most towns and villages in medieval Europe. Most towns had "masters of conduit" and water carriers dedicated to the task. Second, we have brewers journals dating back some 500 years in England and further back in Germany. Beer is made by mashing or steeping grain in hot water and rinsing it out to produce wort, fermentable sugary/protein rich water. Historically this rinsing (sparging) would be done in 2 - 3 runnings with successively less sugar content in each. The 3rd running might produce small beer 1-3% ABV, but the first runnings could produce beer as strong as 10%, or more. sometimes the first and second runnings were combined and diluted. Much like today, beers of various strengths were available. Small beers were popular as a calorie rich energy drink for laborers, but they also had access to stronger drinks. One reason for making beer is the stable storage of surplus grain, and small beer has a very short shelf life. Before mechanization farm work was in many ways less dangerous, with a few notable exceptions. To list only one example, you can easily drive a horse cart with a fairly strong buzz as it's slow moving and the horse is largely self guided.