I don't think you're actually applying logic. Your priors make exactly no sense. As others have pointed out - boiling contaminated water decontaminates it... b

I don't think you're actually applying logic. Your priors make exactly no sense. As others have pointed out - boiling contaminated water decontaminates it... beer involves boiling. 2% alcohol content is plenty to help slow bacterial growth, making it keep longer. > I mean think of all the calories, the logistics and all Ok let's do that. In the pre-modern eras, calories were the thing almost everyone was focused on. Famine was common (famine is when lots of people starve to death), so any way of getting calories was good. Beer is made of malt, that is sprouted grain that is then heated to dry and cook it. Sprouted grain doesn't keep - it either becomes a plant or rots. Using it for beer makes good use of calories that would otherwise go to waste. NO one was worried about getting fat (in fact if you were lucky enough to get fat, it was a benefit - you're more likely to survie the next famine). > Obviously people were mostly drinking water... It is also true, that weak 2% ale was consumed a lot, just not as much a water. This is not obvious at all - do you have any good sources besides weak logic based on false assumptions?