IMC 2016: Sessions

Session 721: How Strong Were Medieval Ales?

Sponsor:	Medieval Brewers Guild
Organiser:	Stephen C. Law, College of Liberal Arts, University of Central Oklahoma
Moderator/Chair:	Nuri Creager, Department of Foreign Languages & Literatures, Oklahoma State University
Paper 721-a	The Demon Drink: Anglo-Saxon Attitudes to Alcoholic Consumption (Language: English) Stephen Pollington, Independent Scholar, Basildon Index terms: Daily Life, Historiography - Medieval, Language and Literature - Old English, Religious Life
Paper 721-b	Twy Brownum Ealu: Revisiting the Anglo-Saxon Secrets of Twice-Brewed Ale (Language: English) Stephen C. Law, College of Liberal Arts, University of Central Oklahoma Index terms: Historiography - Medieval, Science, Social History, Technology
Abstract	The relative alcoholic strength of beers and ales in the Middle Ages can be evaluated using several tools of assessment. This session examines the 'rhetorical' evidence used by clerical sources who wish to impose greater temperance on Anglo-Saxon society, the rise of grain prices that restrained drunkenness in the Netherlands, not governmental regulation, and the 'brewing science' that validates the possibility of super strength Anglo-Saxon ales.