[mewpmewp2]

To be honest if you are unaware of the bad effects of beer or how addiction works in general, it seems like a thing that you would get so easily addicted to.

If I had a different knowledge set and easy access to beer, perhaps I would just drink it daily.

Without water I imagine there are going to be massive hangovers though.

[wongarsu]

Common beers back then were very different from today's beer. Beer was more of a liquid meal, with lots of calories and about half the alcohol content of a Coors Light.

[TSiege]

Honestly that sounds kinda awesome to me. I'd love to try it

[bell-cot]

The quoted bit specifies small beer.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Small_beer#History

[7thaccount]

I assume these beers were pretty low ABV. Addiction to alcohol probably was pretty common and perhaps preferable to dysentery.

[878654Tom]

Yes, this is called Small Beer or Table Beer in Belgium. It goes as low as 1% and was very normal in schools and at homes before clean water was a common thing.

It still is a very popular beer to drink while you eat but children don't consume it anymore. My father did tell me that when he was younger (1970-1980) they still drank it at the table in his school.

[kwhitefoot]

I don't know when the rules changed but when I was a child in England in the sixties anything less than 2% could be sold to anyone, it wasn't regarded as properly alcoholic. The brand I remember is Top Deck Shandy, half and half lemonade and light beer.