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Beer is boiled, which destroys most pathogens you might worry about. You could boil plain water and be safe, but that wasn't understood until later, see pasteur

Beer is boiled, which destroys most pathogens you might worry about. You could boil plain water and be safe, but that wasn't understood until later, see pasteurization. A vessel inoculated with yeast and other brewing microorganisms will make it harder for other microorganisms to take root. They'll be outcompeted by the large existing population. So a barrel of beer will tend to stay healthier than a barrel of water. If someone drank say, 100oz of 2% abv beer over the course of the day, that's equivalent to 2.5 pints of 5% beer - hardly enough to get shitfaced. Edit in response to your edit: density was lower but technology to manage density was less sophisticated as well. Providing clean water to a large population is a hard problem that people have had to solve lots of ways, and brewing is one of the solutions. Later, an infected city water pump led to the invention of modern epidemiology.

dhritzkiv 3y ago
In addition, if hops (or other herbs) were used in the boil, the acids from the hops (what gives beer its bitter bite), even in small amounts, would provide anti-bacterial benefits to the beer.
- sudobash1 3y ago
  For the medieval period, it would have been other herbs. Hops are something of a later addition. I don't believe that they came into very widespread use until the reformation era.
automatic6131 3y ago
And at about 0.5% ABV you digest the alcohol at about the rate you can drink it (assuming you drink it at anything below a "competitive" rate. Just like, as much as you'd drink socially, or with a meal, or for rehydration)
qwytw 3y ago
> You could boil plain water and be safe, but that wasn't understood until later Not sure that's true. We have evidence that ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans (and I assume other societies) understood that boiling water made it safer to drink. Basic sand/gravel filters. Hypocrates for instance described a method of boiling water and then filtering it through a cloth to purify it and remove "bad smells". To be fair even if you have no clue about bacteria it's not a particularly complex concept to understand. If for instance pre modern people truly drank beer because it was safer surely at some point one of them would've asked the question why is that the case?
aaron695 3y ago
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dhritzkiv 3y ago

In addition, if hops (or other herbs) were used in the boil, the acids from the hops (what gives beer its bitter bite), even in small amounts, would provide anti-bacterial benefits to the beer.

sudobash1 3y ago
For the medieval period, it would have been other herbs. Hops are something of a later addition. I don't believe that they came into very widespread use until the reformation era.

automatic6131 3y ago

And at about 0.5% ABV you digest the alcohol at about the rate you can drink it (assuming you drink it at anything below a "competitive" rate. Just like, as much as you'd drink socially, or with a meal, or for rehydration)

qwytw 3y ago

> You could boil plain water and be safe, but that wasn't understood until later Not sure that's true. We have evidence that ancient Egyptians, Greeks and Romans (and I assume other societies) understood that boiling water made it safer to drink. Basic sand/gravel filters. Hypocrates for instance described a method of boiling water and then filtering it through a cloth to purify it and remove "bad smells". To be fair even if you have no clue about bacteria it's not a particularly complex concept to understand. If for instance pre modern people truly drank beer because it was safer surely at some point one of them would've asked the question why is that the case?

aaron695 3y ago

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