A couple of weeks ago I bought and read a book on drinking over the ages in
Bath written by a couple of local historians. The facts were so remarkable
that I checked them with one of the authors yesterday. The truth is
that before machines came in beer was much stronger than it is nowadays
(except for small beer mainly brewed for children) and because there was no
tea, coffee or drinkable water every one of us peasants drank about ten
pints a day. When the Industrial Revolution started up and machines came in
the brewers were requested to damp the strength of their beer down and did
so. Up till then everybody had spent most of the day in a very merry state.
This was because clear heads were required to operate machines. So it really
was Merry Olde England. Beer nowadays is about 4% so it must have been
around 6%. As for gin it came in later.
Douglas Clark, Bath, Somerset, England ....
http://www.dgdclynx.plus.com
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