[cardanome]

> 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.

[legitster]

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.

[hprotagonist]

> Roman troops would make and haul the stuff around with them rather than risk local water on the march.

it’s more than this: posca or sekanjibin or switchel or any of the other similar vinegar drinks are a bit like savory gatorade: you will preferentially choose them when exerted and they’re available, they’re better regardless of sanitation.

[watwut]

> Even the most crystal clear stream will have some sort of wild animal refuse in it that could leave you sick for days.

When you are local never ever moving out of place you do know what is upstream or in well. This "had no idea cows are up there" thing is modern hiker problem.

> the average person's distaste for drinking plain water is somewhat universal across time and cultures and might very well be a human adaptation.

There is absolutely nothing universal about that. Instead, drinking water seems to be universal accross cultures.

[cardanome]

Having access to fresh water is not the same as saying any puddle of water was 100% safe.

You bring up traveling when the vast majority of people did not travel. At all. Maybe to the next market if we talk later medieval period but that was it really. (I do use bottled water when traveling because I am only used to the local bacteria and it is easy to get sick at first when going to a new country.)

As you write most settlements especially early one were very self-sufficient. So they would have some source of water that could be safely consumed. Remember, even for beer brewing you need to start with clean water. Sure heating it up helps with bacteria but you can't brew beer with dirty swamp water. It will be gross.

The whole antisemitic conspiracy theory of Jews poisoning the well only works if people were actually drinking from the well. Not that antisemitism needs to be very rational but it shows that people had a considered safe source of water they regularly drank from.

> 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.

I don't think hunter-gatherer societies where big on beer brewing. The whole building settlements thing is a very recent innovation in evolutionary terms so probably not enough time has passed for such a trait to become relevant.

Plus I mean our brains like sugar and carbohydrates very much, we quickly learn to crave alcohol and coffee. We can already explain why people might drink something else than plain water.

[legitster]

If we both went into a time machine, and had to make the choice, I think both of us would still end up drinking the small-beer over even the most pristine local water.

But regardless, this is still not a strong argument that we need to "debunk" the history as the original author is trying to do. We have written primary sources from the dawn of writing until the modern temperance movements in the 1800s that all basically say the same thing - humans in any agricultural society ended up supplying the majority of their hydration from prepared sources of water. Access to clean water was about bathing, preparing food or drink, and the occasional drink of water.

Regardless of how safe their water was or was not to drink, medieval people still ended up drinking small-beer a majority of the time if they could help it.

[willcipriano]

Im not the guy you are talking to but I drink water directly from streams now. Have done it since I was little.

I'm not a big beer guy, I'd find a moving, hopefully relatively cold water source.

I've never gotten sick from drinking water like that.

[sophacles]

> The whole antisemitic conspiracy theory of Jews poisoning the well only works if people were actually drinking from the well.

Not really. Independent of people drinking directly from the well:

* animals are watered by getting the water from the well.

* food is prepared with water from the well

* ale is prepared with water from the well

and so on. All of these things would subsequently be poisoned if the well was poisoned. They needed a safe source of water, but that does not imply that they drank it directly.