<\/p>\n
The Irish Times writes:<\/p>\n
You spend years \u2018burrowing away on dusty documents\u2019, then a line in your research \u2013 admittedly attention-grabbing \u2013 about workers in Ireland in the 16th century quaffing rations of 14 pints of beer a day, gets noticed, and suddenly historian Dr Susan Flavin is getting calls from all over the place. Images of burly stone masons lurching around drunkenly wielding medieval hammers and chisels come to mind.<\/p>\n
Flavin, a lecturer in early modern history at Anglia Ruskin University, has been researching 16th century social and economic history for years, and says today that people have \u2018jumped on\u2019 the beer angle. She\u2019s had an offer from someone who wants to recreate a 16th century oat brew and send her bottles, and a well-known craft brewery has also offered help in recreating the methods, for which she\u2019s hoping for research funding.<\/p>\n
So, if people routinely quaffed large quantities of beer daily, were most people going about their daily business three sheets to the wind? Flavin\u2019s research shows beer was a vital source of calories and nutrition for workers. For example records from January 1565 show stone masons working at a quarry in Clontarf, Dublin, were provided with an allowance of 14 pints of ale per day by the proctor of Christ Church Cathedral. Gives a whole new meaning to plastered.<\/p>\n
\u2018People drank beer because it was a source of calories, as well as for thirst and social reasons,\u2019 says Flavin. \u2018It was seen as good for energy and health, and was thought to have restorative properties.\u2019 She calculates that 16th century beer may had a high calorific value, providing between 400-500 calories per pint, compared to 180-200 calories in a pint today.<\/p>\n