[legitster]

This isn't really a slam dunk debunking. I get that medieval people knew about good and bad water, and that they had other reasons to prefer small drinks. But it doesn't change the facts that:

- Medieval people DID drink constantly (mostly in the form of small drinks)

- SOME medieval didn't have access to consistently good water.

- Even good water supplies can be tainted

There are cases were it was noted that a disease would outbreak from the local water supply, but no one from the brewery next door would get sick. This was not lost on most people, so water was drunk but with some risks assumed.

And most notably, we still see this exact dichotomy today in the third world where dysentery and diarrea are still common causes of death. And people with the means or preference towards prepared drinks often fare better.

[kodt]

The myth often states that water was unsafe to drink, so they drank beer. Suggesting water was never drank. Showing that water was regularly consumed does debunk the myth even if the truth is perhaps in the middle.

[like_any_other]

> Suggesting water was never drank.

Sounds like a straw man, or at least a weak man [1], debunked, and then the debunking is falsely applied to the whole category.

[1] https://slatestarcodex.com/2014/05/12/weak-men-are-superweap...

[kodt]

Perhaps, but you often see the myth written as a quick sentence or two before some beer related article. Academics may not be writing that, but lazy writers will repeat it often.

[legitster]

Also known as the "no true Scotsman" fallacy.

[DonHopkins]

“It's unpleasantly like being drunk."

"What's so unpleasant about being drunk?"

"You ask a glass of water.”

― Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy

[quietbritishjim]

Yeah, the article text seems to suggest that beer and wine are almost never drank in preference to water (though it never quite comes out and says that explicitly). But all the quotations put water, at best, as just a reasonable competitor, not a clear winner.

[IAmBroom]

And as something a million times more affordable and easy to access, water being a reasonable competitor makes it a winner.

By analogy, Coke and mineral spring water both provide safe hydration. Yet more Coke is consumed by the average American.

It would be a myth to say Americans avoid Coke and prefer mineral water, because of the (random variable that doesn't wildly vary between the two drinks).