[kevinmchugh]

The beer that was being consumed was often table beer, 3%abv at the absolute most. Made with a small amount of malt, left to ferment only a couple days. 3.5 gallons a year means about an ounce and a quarter a day. Drinking a gallon of 1%abv beer every day is probably not great for your liver but you might never feel an alcohol buzz from it.

Heavy drinking and all its bad effects were more common back then, but I don't think table beer is the culprit.

[cecilpl2]

That number of 3.5 gallons per year is in terms of pure ethanol. 3.5 gallons of ethanol weighs 10,500 grams, which at 14 grams per standard drink is 750 drinks per year, or 2 drinks per day on average. That's quite a lot.

[kevinmchugh]

Right, I think we agree on the math here. When we read about people in the 18th century drinking beer with breakfast, they weren't having a standard drink. It was more likely a very low ABV drink.

If you drank a gallon of 1%ABV beer every day, you'd have 3.65 gallons of ethanol per year. That's not exactly what was happening - binges on whiskey and rum were common, but they weren't constantly buzzed, either.

That much alcohol is going to be bad for a liver no matter how you drink it. I don't think this was healthy. My point is just that there was less inebriation than we suppose when we think about drinking beer with breakfast