[aaronscott]

Your comment about being continuously narked reminded me how in early human history people relied on low-alcohol beer as a safe water supply. So back then it was a double-whammy.

https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-conflicted-hi...

[Rodeoclash]

It's worth reading this comment about the use of beer to disinfect water:

https://old.reddit.com/r/AskHistorians/comments/ol1h45/delet...

It puts forward that the purpose of small beer was mainly because water is boring to drink all the time.

[alentred]

As far as I understand, historically, alcoholic beverages were primarily invented and used as a water disinfectant. Rum was used in British navy to disinfect fresh water in barrels. Wine was used to dilute it in water till the 20th century. Fun fact, in ancient Greece people who drank pure wine (not diluting it in water) were considered alcoholics and could be publicly denounced. Beer was used as a typical beverage accompanying a meal in many populations (a sandwich with a beer was the closest analogy to the "fast food"). It appears that it is only recently that we have started to consume alcohol for pleasure.

[sithadmin]

I'm not sure I buy your claim that rum was ever used to 'disinfect' fresh water on British Navy ships. The 'grog' mix they used was not of sufficient ABV to disinfect the water, as it was handed out at a 4:1 ratio of water:rum. It was moreso about making the daily rum ration difficult to hoard, and much more efficient to transport than beer or wine.

[tobinfricke]

Previously:

"Were Early Modern People Perpetually Drunk? (2016) (hypotheses.org)"

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13535868

[EA-3167]

The first comment is on point, pre-Prohibition the US was basically run on good old constitution juice. Turning excess grain into a storage-friendly form that also fetched a good price was a huge economic reality at all levels, from individual farmers to large land-owners. The side effect of that was that where people used to mostly drink cider and ale, applejack and the like, now it was cheaper and acceptable to just stay perpetually lit on whiskey.

[mnw21cam]

While other comments have clearly shown that the alcohol in beer isn't strong enough to disinfect it, the way beer is made is that you first have to disinfect the water you're going to use (by boiling it) and then you store the beer in conditions that stop pathogens getting in. So for those reasons the beer would be safer than water, but you'd have just as much success just boiling some water and using it straight away. The other advantage of beer over water is that if it does get pathogens in it, then it is really obvious, and people know not to drink foul beer [citation needed].