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During
the second half of the eighteenth century the annual
consumption of beer in all the towns for which figures are
available varied between 250 and 350 litres per person. Now
this impressive quantity does not necessarily point to
abnormality. Even in years of full employment and low food
prices most families had to be content with a monotonous and
dry food, consisting of rough rye bread, beans and salted
foodstuffs.
Clean water was rare in the towns and,
where available, was by definition tasteless. Fresh milk,
because it did not remain fresh for long, could not be
transported over long distances and because of the dreadful
conditions of hygiene was often of dubious quality.
Chocolate, coffee or tea, the fashionable drinks of the
eighteenth century, could not be afforded by the large
majority of people.Poor people therefore had to quell their
thirst with beer, which contained the greatest number of
calories (as expressed in their cost). Moreover, the cheaper
"small beers" had such a low alcohol content that people had
to drain several jars before they reached a state of
euphoria. This took place mainly in public houses.
There were many kinds of drinking houses,
ranging from large and comfortable hostelries, where people
could eat and stay the night, to cabarets or pubs, which
offered little accommodation and where only beer or brandy
was to be had. It was not only thirst and lack of domestic
comfort that drove the lower classes in the evenings and on
holidays to the public house, where there was space, light
and warmth. Public houses also functioned as a crossroads
for communication, where local residents exchanged views on
items of news or their problems, and doubled as relaxation
centres where people could dance and play dice or cards. In
short, they were the focus of social and cultural
activities. Drinking in company oiled the wheels of a
society in which close family ties and good neighbourliness
were essential conditions for survival. Inviting all one's
relatives and friends to a christening, an engagement or a
wedding feast was a social obligation, whatever it cost,
because the cohesion of the family and the community had
continually to be re-established.
People in rural settings, especially when
poor, could not waste their small incomes on simpler and
possibly hygienical safer drinks like "small beer" to
satisfy their thirst.
Modified
from: Catharine Lis & Hugo Soly "Disordered Lives"
Polity Press, 1966 (ISBN 07456-1514-7)
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