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Some may think that cerebral topics like word origins and “the people’s drink” don’t go together (much the same way I don’t like chocolate in my peanut butter and vice versa) but I think it’s great.
Zythophile: Words for beer (2) – was ‘beer’ originally cider?
To rub in the point that ealu and beór were seen as distinct and separate drinks a thousand years ago, Ælfric, abbot of Cerne Abbas in Dorset, who lived from around AD 955 to AD 1010, wrote of John the Baptist in one of his “Homilies” that “ne dranc he naðor ne win, ne beór, ne ealu, ne nan ðæra wætan ðe menn of druncniað,” that is, “nor drank he neither wine, nor beór, nor ale, nor any other liquor that makes men drunk.” Ælfric, who was a conscientious writer, clearly felt he needed to differentiate beór from ealu, as well as ealu from win. Beór, then, comes through from Anglo-Saxon texts as strong and sweet, and different to, or separate, from ealu.
Fascinating stuff
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