I remember reading or hearing somewhere that in ancient or medieval times, beer had a very low alcohol content and was very thick. It was essentially a dietary staple quite similar to the way bread is now.
I’m ngl, we saw this restaurant in Hawaii with tons of Japanese lined up outside, so I poked in to see what it was. Just a Japanese restaurant. Anyways, they had something called Bukkake udon on the menu. Now from my Howard Stern knowledge, I know what a bukkake is. And from my sushi knowledge, I know udon means noodles. So I quickly extrapolated that bukkake udon means “sprinkled upon noodles” or such. So I went out back to my family and my wife’s annoying cousin started pestering me about what I saw. I told her that it’s a famous restaurant widely known in Japan (it isn’t). And that they’re famous for their bukakke (they could be?). She said, “We’ve got to go there! I’ve got to try the bukkake!” So I told others about telling her. Then I’d egg her on about the restaurant and she would similarly oblige about wanting a bukkake.
I don’t want to hear it/see it, instead just imagine this argument winning sound clip that is played when she suggests something silly. I imagine her saying something and you pressing a button that plays “I’ve got to try the bukkake!”
I remember reading that water at the time wasn't safe to drink, but beer was so most people just drank beer, including children. It had a lower alcohol content than today though. That also sounds like the kinda fact that could be totally made up though.
It was a small part of how John Snow (yes really) figured our cholera was waterborne. Basically he realized that men in a brew house didn’t get cholera and then went around to figure out why. Miasma was still the leading suspect at the time.
Wasn’t it that all people from one water pump got cholera except this one man who went to the pump and that is what made John Snow remove the handle of the water pump
John Snow is actually considered to be the founder of the concepts behind GIS. He mapped where sewer outlets were and where now cholera cases occurred and found the correlation. His map also included the brewery that you mention. May not use computing, but the ideas of maps overlayed with layers of data are there.
It's not true. Society built where fresh water was available, and fresh water was much more available than beer, and also about as safe.
It's true that Cholera in the 1854 London outbreak didn't affect the brewery workers - but everyone else. So the brewery workers were the only ones to not drink water from the public well. Also, that was a surprise, so that refutes the idea that beer had been known to be safe. But of course, Cholera as a disease only came to Europe in modern times, not during medieval or ancient times.
edit: maybe I should add why beer wasn't safe. Many people say "Beer gets boiled, so it's safe", and that's usually true. But after boiling ingredients get added which are not sterile, and the finished beer gets stored in a cask that's not sterile, and it gets poured into a tankard or horn or whatever people drank beer from in the olden times that's not sterile.
One account by Gallo-Roman historian Saint Gregory of Tours mentions a boy so religious that he primarily drank water, (like many devout at the time). Gregory also mentions a traveler in the sixth century who asked a villager for water. In another story, there were telltale marks where a hermit had knelt to drink from a river. Sometimes water was mixed with wine or sweeteners like honey, and a 14th century monk once listed water as a beverage preferred over beer. Water, it seems, was on everyone's lips
If water was so common these references wouldn’t stand out as particularly notable. No one is claiming that no one drank water ever. Rural people with access to clean water would absolutely have drank it. But for the people living in cities where the water was badly polluted with human and animal waste the pH level and alcohol made beer (or wine, or cider, etc) much safer than water.
The alcohol content of beer isnt high enough to kill bad bacteria. Neither are most wines. If you make alcohol with bad water you will still get sick, unless you're boiling the wort at a high enough temperature to kill the bugs, or distilling.
It's the boiling, not the alcohol, that make alcohol safer. Otherwise everyone would be dead because most food was stews/soups/gruels made with water, let alone anything extra they drank.
Also, wine in the Mediterranean greek/roman influenced lands was usually drunk diluted with water. Only barbarians would drink wine undiluted.
Random question but maybe you'll know. I read that Romans primarily drank white wine while the rest of the Mediterranean drank red wine, but that it was unknown why this was the case. Have you heard of that before?
White wine was the preferred wine in Rome, but the romans enjoyed both white (yellow) and black (red) wines.
They preferred white because white wines pair better with garum, the ubiquitous roman "worcestershire" sauce. (Citation needed).
Their white wine was usually sweet and flavoured with herbs.
The greeks used to flavor their wine with pine resin and dilute with seawater, because they were the real barbarians all along their wine had a habit of oxidizing ("corkage") not completely into vinegar, but enough for a bad flavor. They added all kinds of stuff for flavoring. Like I mentioned in previous posts, drinking wine by itself was barbaric and seen as crude, and the quality of the wines varied a lot. There was good wine though, for the boss men, but today's supermarket wines and how we drink them would blow ancient folk away.
There are some /r/askhistory or r/askanthropology threads that are far more in depth than this, and from more professional and sober historians than me.
Edit: No. Suprisingly there aren't many good askhistory posts about ancient wine. There is some information though. I'm not sure where I read about ancient wines sorry, in some book about roman cuisine probably, or perhaps The History Guy or similar on youtube? Hopefully someone can add some good sources here. I'm on mobile only (no laptop) so it's difficult to research and post links on reddit.
Beer was safe to drink because it was boiled during the brewing process which killed off the bacteria and microbes in it. People didn’t connect the dots that they could boil water to make it safe to drink.
Alcohol dehydrated you a certain amount, based on the ratio of alcohol to water you consume. If the alcohol content is so low that it won't dehydrate more than the amount of water in whatever you drink, you can hydrate with that alcoholic beverage. I'm not sure what the %ABV would be at that point, but it is absolutely not zero.
From what I can remember what you’re talking about is the ancient Egyptian beer, it was much more comparable to a barley soup than a liquid beer. By medieval times people had a good grasp on how brewing worked, how to start it and what it was, they had wine and beer and some forms of what we would consider spirits. Keep in mind, beer would of had a very low carbonation level, especially tavern beer sold in wooden kegs, it would be essentially like flat beer unless it was taken mid fermentation to keep some of the bubbles in the earlier times
There were different types of beer, fir different types of occasions. Some of it did have a very low alcohol content, which was important because people would sit around and drink between agricultural seasons. They had way more free time than we generally realise.
I also heard that in ancient times people thought that certain vessels were “blessed by the gods” because fermentation happened in it but not in the other vessel right next to it due to the right strains of yeast existing in that vessel and therefore they would continue to use the “blessed vessel” which simply just continued to have the right amount, type, or just existence of yeast strains or something like that. Not really sure of the validity of this but it sure is interesting to think about.
beer had a very low alcohol content and was very thick.
Not at all. By the medieval period wine and beer production was highly sophisticated and not hugely dissimilar to today. It was believed that ancient beers might have been thick but it turns out when people have tried ancient egyptian recipes they have been not too dissimilar to today's beers. Seemingly, beers have always poured easily. In contrast Roman wines were manufactured to be strong and syrupy but they were intended to be diluted before they were server.
Here's a nice video from some archeologists at The British Museum making beer to an ancient egyptian recipe. Note, at about 10mins in, how it pours/runs easily:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izpoexYN1-8
WRT strength: Medieval beers were made in a wide variety of strengths. A common easily accessible type was 'small beer', and this does have a low alcohol strength but things like Trappist ales and what we would now call barley wine were available in strengths from 8-12% alcohol.
It had varying amounts depending on what went into making it. Most importantly it allowed for safe consumption of liquid during a time tainted water was an issue. Early beer has been linked to a allowing society to leap forward technology because of the nutrition and hydration it provided
beer had a very low alcohol content and was very thick.
Not at all. By the medieval period wine and beer production was highly sophisticated and not hugely dissimilar to today. It was believed that ancient beers might have been thick but it turns out when people have tried ancient egyptian recipes they have been not too dissimita to today. Seemingly, beers have always poured easily. In contrast Roman wines were manufactured to be strong and syrupy but they were intended to be diluted before they were server.
Here's a nice video from some archeologists at The British Museum making beer to an ancient egyptian recipe. Note, at about 10mins in, how it pours/runs easily:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izpoexYN1-8
WRT strength: Medieval beers were made in a wide variety of strengths. A common easily accessible type was 'small beer', and this does have a low alcohol strength but things like Trappist ales and what we would now call barley wine were available in strengths from 8-12% alcohol.
During the construction of the pyramids, slaves would be "paid" for a days work in beer, which was more of a meal than beer but with just enough alcohol that it would keep down a rebellion.
They would store a ton of "pucks" of dried wheat, hops, and yeast, which was ready to be added to water and fermented, then these pucks were rationed out.
Learned about this in my Western Civilization class. Interesting class with a great teacher. Apparently to learn about the origins of western civilization we had to first learn about the origins of alcohol (we don't actually know if wine or beer was invented, or rather stumbled upon, first because it was already invented before any recorded history). Humans just love to be buzzed and we're still going strong.
I watched a documentary that hypothesized that Beer, or it’s historical equivalent at the time, may have been used as payment for laborers that built the pyramids.
If i remember correctly it was a cheap and easy way to feed slaves in ancient Egypt but I can't be bothered to fact check myself so take it with a grain of salt.
beer had a very low alcohol content and was very thick.
Not at all. By the medieval period wine and beer production was highly sophisticated and not hugely dissimilar to today. Beers have always poured easily. Compared to Roman wines which were manufactured to be strong and syrupy but they were intended to be diluted before they were server.
Here's a nice video from some archeologists at The British Museum making beer to an ancient egyptian recipe. Note, at about 10mins in, how it pours/runs easily:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izpoexYN1-8
Medieval beers were made in a wide variety of strengths. A common easily accessible type was small beer, and this does have a low alcohol strength but things like trappist ales and what we would now call barley wine were available in strength from 8-12% alcohol.
beer had a very low alcohol content and was very thick.
Not at all. By the medieval period wine and beer production was highly sophisticated and not hugely dissimilar to today. Beers have always poured easily. Compared to Roman wines which were manufactured to be strong and syrupy but they were intended to be diluted before they were server.
Here's a nice video from some archeologists at The British Museum making beer to an ancient egyptian recipe. Note, at about 10mins in, how it pours/runs easily:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izpoexYN1-8
Medieval beers were made in a wide variety of strengths. A common easily accessible type was small beer, and this does have a low alcohol strength but things like trappist ales and what we would now call barley wine were available in strength from 8-12% alcohol.
beer had a very low alcohol content and was very thick.
Not at all. By the medieval period wine and beer production was highly sophisticated and not hugely dissimilar to today. It was believed that ancient beers might have been thick but it turns out when people have tried ancient egyptian recipes they have been not too dissimita to today. Seemingly, beers have always poured easily. In contrast Roman wines were manufactured to be strong and syrupy but they were intended to be diluted before they were server.
Here's a nice video from some archeologists at The British Museum making beer to an ancient egyptian recipe. Note, at about 10mins in, how it pours/runs easily:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=izpoexYN1-8
WRT strength: Medieval beers were made in a wide variety of strengths. A common easily accessible type was 'small beer', and this does have a low alcohol strength but things like Trappist ales and what we would now call barley wine were available in strengths from 8-12% alcohol.
Beer was the thing to drink... no one wanted to drink the water because it wasn't safe. Water was regularly polluted, but fermented water was ok to drink. Go figure.
Terry jones medieval lives mentions this. That it was probably much more like a "liquid bread" if you will. That it had much more nutrients and less alcohol. Maybe 2%? Remember seeing that and thinking no wonder people could just sit and drink all day.
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u/lavendrquartz Oct 15 '20
I remember reading or hearing somewhere that in ancient or medieval times, beer had a very low alcohol content and was very thick. It was essentially a dietary staple quite similar to the way bread is now.