All classes commonly drank ale or beer. Milk was also available, but usually reserved for younger people. Wine was imported from France and Italy for those with money. The wealthier you were, the better you ate.
Wine was the drink of choice for the upper classes and anyone who could afford it. It was produced all over medieval Europe and, due to the Medieval Warm Period that prevailed over western Europe until the 14th century, the climate meant it could be produced as far north as northern England.
History. At mealtimes in the Middle Ages, persons of all ages drank small beer, particularly while eating a meal at the table. Table beer was around this time typically less than 1% alcohol by volume (ABV).
Juices, as well as wines, of a multitude of fruits and berries had been known at least since Roman antiquity and were still consumed in the Middle Ages: pomegranate, mulberry and blackberry wines, perry, and cider which was especially popular in the north where both apples and pears were plentiful.
Few commoners in Feudal England ever tasted claret. That is, red Bordeaux wine. Their staple was ale, which, to them, was food rather than drink. Not surprisingly, men, women, and children had ale for breakfast.
All classes commonly drank ale or beer. Milk was also available, but usually reserved for younger people. Wine was imported from France and Italy for those with money. The wealthier you were, the better you ate.
These are heady times for British mead. The honey-based drink is thought to be the world's oldest alcoholic beverage. It was probably being made in China in 7000 BC and King Arthur counted it amongst his favourite tipples.
Dating back thousands of years, mead is an alcoholic beverage created by fermenting honey with water, sometimes with various fruits or spices. It was once thought to be the drink of the gods, falling from the Heavens as dew and then gathered by bees. Mead was also believed to improve health and prolong life.
Milk was an important source of animal protein for those who could not afford meat. It would mostly come from cows, but milk from goats and sheep was also common. Plain fresh milk was not consumed by adults except the poor or sick, and was usually reserved for the very young or elderly.
Long relegated to the dusty corners of history, mead - the drink of kings and Vikings - is making a comeback in the US.
It tasted somewhat like "liquid bread" -- much more so than more modern beer. It also had a fair amount of tannic taste; much more than could be explain by the addition of oak. I suspect this was mostly due to the final addition of boiling water just before straining out the liquor.
If you kept to a strict beer diet—and swore off plain water altogether—you'd likely die of dehydration in a matter of days or weeks, depending on the strength and volume of beer consumed.
Chemical analyses recently confirmed that the earliest alcoholic beverage in the world was a mixed fermented drink of rice, honey, and hawthorn fruit and/or grape. The residues of the beverage, dated ca. 7000–6600 BCE, were recovered from early pottery from Jiahu, a Neolithic village in the Yellow River Valley.
Knights often ate roasted meat (chicken, pig, rabbit, etc) and local vegetables like carrots, cabbage and onion. Most meals were also served with bread, dried fruit and an alcoholic drink like mead or beer. Since knights were a higher social class, they could also afford items like butter and cheese.
Conjuring images of medieval knights and fierce Norseman, mead, also known as “honey wine,” is believed to be the world's oldest alcoholic libation and one that's generally associated with eras past.
"The earliest breakfast was undoubtedly just a chunk of bread and a mug of watered wine. Then we have evidence of anchovies and fillets of other fish being consumed, these like the famous British breakfast of kippered herring being always in a preserved state ready for eating at any time.
Now, scientists have found some of the oldest evidence yet for dairy drinking: People in modern Kenya and Sudan were ingesting milk products beginning at least 6000 years ago. That's before humans evolved the "milk gene," suggesting we were drinking the liquid before we had the genetic tools to properly digest it.
In the Middle Ages, coffee began its journey starting from South West Ethiopia. From there, between the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, Ethiopians introduced coffee first in Yemen and then along the east coast of the Red Sea, to Mecca and Medina, in Arabia, and then spread it throughout the Arabian Peninsula.
Bread was the staple for all classes, although the quality and price varied depending on the type of grain used. Some people even used bread as plates: 'trenches' were thick slices of bread, slightly hollowed out, and served bearing food at meal times.
The youngest legal drinking age in the world is 15, with both Mali and the Central African Republic allowing folks to drink at that time. Seven countries do not have a government-mandated drinking age, while 11 countries ban the consumption of booze entirely.
It is important to note that modern beer is much stronger than the beers of the past. While current beers are 3–5% alcohol, the beer drunk in the historical past was generally 1% or so. This was known as 'small beer'. However, the production and distribution of spirits spread slowly.
In the 16th century people often drank ale or beer. Young children drank milk. Water was often too dirty to drink. People only drank it if it came from a pure source.
The Vikings drank strong beer at festive occasions, together with the popular drink of mead. Mead was a sweet, fermented drink made from honey, water and spices. Wine made from grapes was also known of, but had to be imported, from France, for example.
This forced everyone -- from commoners to royalty -- to hydrate by way of beer. Except that they didn't. The idea that people primarily drank beer throughout the Middle Ages is widespread -- and also wrong. A number of records from medieval times report that water was plentiful and common.
Outside of religious services, there was an abundance of secular wine during medieval times. The most important function of secular wine during the early Middle Ages (400-900 A.C.E.) was to provide nourishment to those who drank it, due to its calories and its ability to quench thirst.