Welcome to City-Data.com Forum!
U.S. CitiesCity-Data Forum Index
Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > History
 [Register]
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
View detailed profile (Advanced) or search
site with Google Custom Search

Search Forums  (Advanced)
Reply Start New Thread
 
Old 10-20-2020, 02:59 PM
 
Location: North Carolina
10,196 posts, read 17,760,084 times
Reputation: 13903

Advertisements

Quote:
Originally Posted by ABQConvict View Post
How much alcohol do you think is in beer? Yes, alcohol dehydrates, but the average beer is about 5% alcohol and 95% water, The dehydrating effect of the alcohol is more that offset by the water content.




Lettøl (or lättöl) is a common tyoe of light beer in Scandinavia and is usually around 2%. I think by law it can't be more than 2.25%

It is very popular for two reasons, first because alcohol is taxed highly in Scandinava, so lighter beers are cheaper, and second because cheap low alcohol beer fits the bill for when you want to spend the day drinking copious amounts of beer while mowing or fishing or whatever without getting trashed drunk.
That's interesting, but somehow I don't think cachibatches lives in Scandinavia - though I suppose beers can be imported, it doesn't seem like it would be popular in the US, lol. I'd still be curious to know if he's personally ever even had less than 2% alcohol before. I sure haven't, and I lived in the UK for 8 years where Swedish cider was my favorite, and very common (Kopparberg, Rekorderlig), so I'm certainly not completely unfamiliar with Scandinavian alcohols. It's hard to find Kopparberg and Rekorderlig here in the US, and that's normally 4-5%. I can't see Americans having much use for something around 2%, lol. I googled Lettøl and it seems to be 2.5%.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message

 
Old 10-20-2020, 05:06 PM
 
Location: North America
4,430 posts, read 2,671,524 times
Reputation: 19314
Quote:
Originally Posted by PA2UK View Post
That's interesting, but somehow I don't think cachibatches lives in Scandinavia - though I suppose beers can be imported, it doesn't seem like it would be popular in the US, lol. I'd still be curious to know if he's personally ever even had less than 2% alcohol before. I sure haven't, and I lived in the UK for 8 years where Swedish cider was my favorite, and very common (Kopparberg, Rekorderlig), so I'm certainly not completely unfamiliar with Scandinavian alcohols. It's hard to find Kopparberg and Rekorderlig here in the US, and that's normally 4-5%. I can't see Americans having much use for something around 2%, lol. I googled Lettøl and it seems to be 2.5%.
I've had various near-beers, which by law can have up to 0.5% ABV.

And I've had Anchor's Small Beer (see below), which is 3.3% ABV. It's made from the second runnings of a barleywine mash, which produces a beer of over 8% ABV. Medieval small beers would have typically had less alcohol than that, but then they were made from the second runnings of less potent mashes than barleywine.

I suspect the reason Anchor version of small beer is so comparatively potent is because, as you note, it would be increasingly hard to market beer with less alcohol. Come to think of it, I bought the only six-pack of Anchor Small Beer that I've ever seen for sale, so it must not be all that popular.

Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-20-2020, 05:34 PM
 
Location: North Carolina
10,196 posts, read 17,760,084 times
Reputation: 13903
Quote:
Originally Posted by 2x3x29x41 View Post
I've had various near-beers, which by law can have up to 0.5% ABV.
That's considered non-alcoholic, obviously those are easily found, but naturally, anything considered non-alcoholic isn't going to get you drunk or dehydrate you. 1-2% is considered alcoholic, but it's still not going to dehydrate like cachibatches was claiming.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-21-2020, 10:25 AM
 
3,573 posts, read 1,156,067 times
Reputation: 374
Quote:
Originally Posted by G.Duval View Post
Water was not safe.
Norsemen ate a lot of traditional boiled in broth food too.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-21-2020, 10:42 AM
 
Location: Grosse Ile Michigan
30,703 posts, read 79,436,554 times
Reputation: 39435
if they were Viking, then they were not in Scandinavia. Your reference is probably to Scnadanvians out Viking in England and Europe. They did not have the fresh water when they were Viking. In addition they would encounter the same problems we do today when drinking water with unfamiliar bacteria. (Dysentery).
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-21-2020, 12:01 PM
 
3,573 posts, read 1,156,067 times
Reputation: 374
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens View Post
if they were Viking, then they were not in Scandinavia. Your reference is probably to Scnadanvians out Viking in England and Europe. They did not have the fresh water when they were Viking. In addition they would encounter the same problems we do today when drinking water with unfamiliar bacteria. (Dysentery).
They were farmers and fishermen , at some point something changed, like overpopulation , natural arrangements, bad crops, e.t.c. Excess of population ...
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-21-2020, 12:27 PM
 
Location: The High Desert
16,012 posts, read 10,570,841 times
Reputation: 31211
Mead and Wassail would not have required grain for production, being based on honey and apples or other fruit. Ale and beer would have required grain. Kvass is made out of rye bread so you can eat the bread or make a slightly fermented drink. The history of Kombucha is murky but certainly people have been fermenting things that they find laying around for thousand of years. Indigenous people all over the world drink all sorts of stuff and survive.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-21-2020, 01:37 PM
 
Location: equator
11,011 posts, read 6,546,565 times
Reputation: 25452
Quote:
Originally Posted by SunGrins View Post
Mead and Wassail would not have required grain for production, being based on honey and apples or other fruit. Ale and beer would have required grain. Kvass is made out of rye bread so you can eat the bread or make a slightly fermented drink. The history of Kombucha is murky but certainly people have been fermenting things that they find laying around for thousand of years. Indigenous people all over the world drink all sorts of stuff and survive.
Like fermented mare's milk in Mongolia. There are some fermented drinks that "started" the ferment through saliva----
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-22-2020, 12:53 PM
 
Location: Østenfor sol og vestenfor måne
17,916 posts, read 24,208,486 times
Reputation: 39027
Quote:
Originally Posted by Coldjensens View Post
if they were Viking, then they were not in Scandinavia. Your reference is probably to Scnadanvians out Viking in England and Europe. They did not have the fresh water when they were Viking.
I think for the purposes of this argument, the term 'viking' is being used to refer to medieval Scandinavians of any status or occupation, whether at home or abroad.

Referring to Scandinavians in the 9th-11th centuries as "vikings" is a common convention. Though I agree it can be misleading and kind of annoying.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
 
Old 10-22-2020, 01:16 PM
 
Location: North Carolina
10,196 posts, read 17,760,084 times
Reputation: 13903
Quote:
Originally Posted by ABQConvict View Post
I think for the purposes of this argument, the term 'viking' is being used to refer to medieval Scandinavians of any status or occupation, whether at home or abroad.

Referring to Scandinavians in the 9th-11th centuries as "vikings" is a common convention. Though I agree it can be misleading and kind of annoying.
Equally kind of annoying is Coldjensens pretending to not know what was meant so they could ostentatiously condescend the OP.
Reply With Quote Quick reply to this message
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.

Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.


Reply
Please update this thread with any new information or opinions. This open thread is still read by thousands of people, so we encourage all additional points of view.

Quick Reply
Message:

Over $104,000 in prizes was already given out to active posters on our forum and additional giveaways are planned!

Go Back   City-Data Forum > General Forums > History

All times are GMT -6.

© 2005-2024, Advameg, Inc. · Please obey Forum Rules · Terms of Use and Privacy Policy · Bug Bounty

City-Data.com - Contact Us - Archive 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37 - Top