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I feel like some of these debunkings need debunking! I don't think anyone is truly arguing that medieval people never drank water. But they did drink beer in q

I feel like some of these debunkings need debunking! I don't think anyone is truly arguing that medieval people never drank water. But they did drink beer in quantities that would be untenable today. The author is also muddling points - medieval people didn't have to understand microbiology to know that beer was safer to drink. And it was! Not only would the brewer have access to better water, it would be boiled as part of the process. (And aromatics like hops acted as mild antiseptics - the beer would be safe to drink for as long as it tasted well). To review: - It was tasty - It was convenient - People you knew who drink it had the trots less often - It was cheap enough - It made you feel good during long days of arduous labor - There was no social stigma so long as you don't get drunk And it makes plenty of reason that brewers would be incentivised to keep ABV low so people could drink it all day if they could. Even going into the US prohibition, I think people would be astonished by how much the typical worker drank (usually cider in the US). With workplaces themselves providing it by the truckload. Yes, people drank water. But (especially in urban settings) they drank A LOT of low abv drinks.

schmidt_fifty 2y ago
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card_zero 2y ago
You're just shoehorning in the assumption that people had diarrhea a lot, because that's the trope about medieval Europe. But if everybody lives in a well-established traditional way (and there's no current war or plague in the area) then they will also know by tradition the springs, streams and wells that yield clean water. In Georgian times, around 1800, coal-based industry gets under way, there's a population explosion, and many cities have properly horrific slums, latrine courtyards ankle deep, families living with pigs in wet cellars, graveyards overflowing ex-human slurry into the street. This is also when we invent bottled water, and if you can't get that, beer is a good option for safety reasons. But in calmer medieval times, avoiding the local water can't have been so crucial, because the locals probably knew where to get the clean-ish stuff (however harmlessly brown or wriggling).
- resolutebat 2y ago
  Natural springs are rare, while streams and rivers are often muddy, seasonal and/or contaminated by domestic animals and wildlife. There's a reason wells were very common.
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    Well water is not safe either. It's exposed to the atmosphere, so to dust, birds (both s(h)itting and flying), and insects, etc. Depending on the shape and structure of the well, rats can crawl inside, and lizards, and cockroaches and other insects can crawl in anyway, and poop there. and we all know about rats as a vector of many serious diseases, like the plague in said mediaeval times.
- anthk 2y ago
  Even "natural springs" could give you tons of diarrhea due to some animals taking a dump nearby.
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    Yes. Another corroborating comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40413484 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40413484
  - fuzztester 2y ago
    Yep, thought of that as soon as I read the parent and GP comments. And I have also thought of the same point on my own before. And it's not just: >could give you tons of diarrhea due to some animals taking a dump nearby. But also: from all the way upstream (from aquatic animal life), and from the upstream watersheds (from terrestrial animal life), which, all together, is a shit-ton of dumps, pun not intended.
  - schmidt_fifty 2y ago
    [dead]
- closewith 2y ago
fuzztester 2y ago
>With workplaces themselves providing it by the truckload. Also probably doing that to keep them working there longer too.
- legitster 2y ago
  Still a tradition in some parts of the world! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvass_barrel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvass_barrel
kybernetikos 2y ago
Sounds a lot like the role coca cola plays today, with tourists drinking it in preference to water they don't know as well as just wide drinking of it because it's tastier than water.
cardanome 2y ago
> Yes, people drank water. But (especially in urban settings) they drank A LOT of low abv drinks. The vast majority of people in the medieval period did NOT live in cities. Furthermore the cities that did exists where way less densely populated and would more look like bigger villages to the modern eye. It is the modern world with it's industrialization and high population density that has the problem of getting safe fresh water. People have images of Victorian London in their head not realizing that is way, way past the medieval era and way into our modern era. The vast majority of people in the medieval period had access to safe drinking water. They also probably met most of their hydration needs from directly consuming safe water sources. While it was common to brew your own beer and people did so a lot, I think the economics required for everyone to be able to consume multiple liters of beer every day would have been a bit too much. As for did medieval people prefer drinking beer when given the choice? Many people today would rather drink soft-drinks or a beer even when having access to perfectly safe tab water. So I agree that might be more plausible.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- legitster 2y ago
  While cities were smaller, I think people forget the inverse, which is that rural areas were much more densely populated. The farms were very small, required lots of labor, and were always close to the manor of a lord or parish. Which almost invariably had a bakery, brewery, and a well present. These services were very convenient to the average peasant, and I was surprised to learn how few medieval homes even had a hearth or oven for baking. Even in the preindustrial days, you could not just grab water from any old surface stream and drink it raw without some risk (as any avid hiker could tell you). Even the most crystal clear stream will have some sort of wild animal refuse in it that could leave you sick for days. We know that early settlers in America basically refused to drink the local water except when forced. Even going back to the Roman period, where they were obsessive about fresh water, even then the average peasant might be drinking posca (vinegar water) all day instead of water. Roman troops would make and haul the stuff around with them rather than risk local water on the march. So I think it would be weird to assume there was a middle medieval period where the water was always pristine and everyone drank it. > Many people today would rather drink soft-drinks or a beer even when having access to perfectly safe tab water. I mean, if you went to a jobsite today, I would not be shocked if less than a third of what people drink during the course of the day is tap water. But if I may posit something - the average person's distaste for drinking plain water is somewhat universal across time and cultures and might very well be a human adaptation.
sdwr 2y ago
Well, I must be a 19th century mill worker, because you're making me want cheap, low ABV cider provided on tap by my employer
jfengel 2y ago
An additional advantage: - It had calories That was the original purpose. It's a way of preserving grain. Food was a constant struggle for most, and they required every single scrap that they could lay their hands on.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
riffraff 2y ago
> medieval people didn't have to understand microbiology to know that beer was safer to drink what did they need to understand? At various points in history people thought it was a good idea to drink mercury or use dung to cure toothache.
pessimizer 2y ago
> And it makes plenty of reason that brewers would be incentivised to keep ABV low so people could drink it all day if they could. Still true in modern times. I'm not even sure it's possible to get drunk on Bud Light. Light rice beers have always been clearly intended to be drunk all day. I worked at a convenience store in a trashy neighborhood in the 90s, and the same people who had just bought a case a few hours ago would come back in for the next case, dead sober.

schmidt_fifty 2y ago

[dead]

card_zero 2y ago

You're just shoehorning in the assumption that people had diarrhea a lot, because that's the trope about medieval Europe. But if everybody lives in a well-established traditional way (and there's no current war or plague in the area) then they will also know by tradition the springs, streams and wells that yield clean water. In Georgian times, around 1800, coal-based industry gets under way, there's a population explosion, and many cities have properly horrific slums, latrine courtyards ankle deep, families living with pigs in wet cellars, graveyards overflowing ex-human slurry into the street. This is also when we invent bottled water, and if you can't get that, beer is a good option for safety reasons. But in calmer medieval times, avoiding the local water can't have been so crucial, because the locals probably knew where to get the clean-ish stuff (however harmlessly brown or wriggling).

resolutebat 2y ago
Natural springs are rare, while streams and rivers are often muddy, seasonal and/or contaminated by domestic animals and wildlife. There's a reason wells were very common.
- fuzztester 2y ago
  Well water is not safe either. It's exposed to the atmosphere, so to dust, birds (both s(h)itting and flying), and insects, etc. Depending on the shape and structure of the well, rats can crawl inside, and lizards, and cockroaches and other insects can crawl in anyway, and poop there. and we all know about rats as a vector of many serious diseases, like the plague in said mediaeval times.
anthk 2y ago
Even "natural springs" could give you tons of diarrhea due to some animals taking a dump nearby.
- fuzztester 2y ago
  Yes. Another corroborating comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40413484 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=40413484
- fuzztester 2y ago
  Yep, thought of that as soon as I read the parent and GP comments. And I have also thought of the same point on my own before. And it's not just: >could give you tons of diarrhea due to some animals taking a dump nearby. But also: from all the way upstream (from aquatic animal life), and from the upstream watersheds (from terrestrial animal life), which, all together, is a shit-ton of dumps, pun not intended.
- schmidt_fifty 2y ago
  [dead]
closewith 2y ago

fuzztester 2y ago

>With workplaces themselves providing it by the truckload. Also probably doing that to keep them working there longer too.

legitster 2y ago
Still a tradition in some parts of the world! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvass_barrel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kvass_barrel

kybernetikos 2y ago

Sounds a lot like the role coca cola plays today, with tourists drinking it in preference to water they don't know as well as just wide drinking of it because it's tastier than water.

cardanome 2y ago

> Yes, people drank water. But (especially in urban settings) they drank A LOT of low abv drinks. The vast majority of people in the medieval period did NOT live in cities. Furthermore the cities that did exists where way less densely populated and would more look like bigger villages to the modern eye. It is the modern world with it's industrialization and high population density that has the problem of getting safe fresh water. People have images of Victorian London in their head not realizing that is way, way past the medieval era and way into our modern era. The vast majority of people in the medieval period had access to safe drinking water. They also probably met most of their hydration needs from directly consuming safe water sources. While it was common to brew your own beer and people did so a lot, I think the economics required for everyone to be able to consume multiple liters of beer every day would have been a bit too much. As for did medieval people prefer drinking beer when given the choice? Many people today would rather drink soft-drinks or a beer even when having access to perfectly safe tab water. So I agree that might be more plausible.

deleted 2y ago
[deleted]
legitster 2y ago
While cities were smaller, I think people forget the inverse, which is that rural areas were much more densely populated. The farms were very small, required lots of labor, and were always close to the manor of a lord or parish. Which almost invariably had a bakery, brewery, and a well present. These services were very convenient to the average peasant, and I was surprised to learn how few medieval homes even had a hearth or oven for baking. Even in the preindustrial days, you could not just grab water from any old surface stream and drink it raw without some risk (as any avid hiker could tell you). Even the most crystal clear stream will have some sort of wild animal refuse in it that could leave you sick for days. We know that early settlers in America basically refused to drink the local water except when forced. Even going back to the Roman period, where they were obsessive about fresh water, even then the average peasant might be drinking posca (vinegar water) all day instead of water. Roman troops would make and haul the stuff around with them rather than risk local water on the march. So I think it would be weird to assume there was a middle medieval period where the water was always pristine and everyone drank it. > Many people today would rather drink soft-drinks or a beer even when having access to perfectly safe tab water. I mean, if you went to a jobsite today, I would not be shocked if less than a third of what people drink during the course of the day is tap water. But if I may posit something - the average person's distaste for drinking plain water is somewhat universal across time and cultures and might very well be a human adaptation.

sdwr 2y ago

Well, I must be a 19th century mill worker, because you're making me want cheap, low ABV cider provided on tap by my employer

jfengel 2y ago

An additional advantage: - It had calories That was the original purpose. It's a way of preserving grain. Food was a constant struggle for most, and they required every single scrap that they could lay their hands on.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]

riffraff 2y ago

> medieval people didn't have to understand microbiology to know that beer was safer to drink what did they need to understand? At various points in history people thought it was a good idea to drink mercury or use dung to cure toothache.

pessimizer 2y ago

> And it makes plenty of reason that brewers would be incentivised to keep ABV low so people could drink it all day if they could. Still true in modern times. I'm not even sure it's possible to get drunk on Bud Light. Light rice beers have always been clearly intended to be drunk all day. I worked at a convenience store in a trashy neighborhood in the 90s, and the same people who had just bought a case a few hours ago would come back in for the next case, dead sober.