>>11336770>Before the 19th century, potable water had the potential to cause sickness because of poorer sanitation. Practical experience demonstrated that fermented beverages were less likely to bring on human illness.[2] At mealtimes in the Middle Ages, all could drink small beer, including persons under the legal drinking age of the present, particularly while eating a meal at the table. Table beer was around this time typically less than 1% ABV.[4]It was common for workers such as sailors who engaged in laborious tasks to drink more than ten imperial pints (5.7 litres) of small beer a day to quench their thirst. Small beer was also consumed for its nutrition content. It might contain traces of wheat or bread suspended within it. In his A Plan for the Conduct of Female Education, in Boarding Schools published 1797, writer Erasmus Darwin agreed that "For the drink of the more robust children water is preferable, and for the weaker ones, small beer ...".[5] Larger educational establishments like Eton, Winchester, and Oxford University even ran their own breweries.[6]
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