Beer was drunk, sometimes with gusto: according to the Annals of Ulster, Gilla Mo-Chonna mac Fogartaig died in his sleep after a binge (iar n-ól), while Muirchertach mac Domnaill Uí Mael Sechlainn fell of a bridge at Cork in a drunken stupor and drowned (1163). Visitors to Cronan´s monastery at Roscrea were served (...) with miraculously fermented beer and got heartily drunk. The laws cite drunkenness and indolence (mesca ocus lesca) as two great failings; but there does not appear to have been a serious problem with drink. Besides, the beer was not always the best: bitter beer could make men sick, according to the Life of Lugaid of Clonfert (Co. Galway); however, on this occasion the king took a hand in the matter, noticed a passing beggar who, for some strange reason carried hoi shoes in his hands, and when asked why answered that he had been given them by the saint. The king purloined the shoes and dropped them into the beer, miraculously sweeting it. Another wort that failed to ferment properly was saved by having a fragment of the cross of sain Aed dropped into it. The brewer of Colman Elo´s monastery sought the saint´s help with wort that failed to ferment; the result was a gushing geyser of miraculous beer without end! The laws refer to a process called "combing" (cirad), which involved using an unidentified implement to separate fermented malt, but there are unfortunately no details of the brewing process from our period.
For connoisseurs of the native brew, the continental beer occasionaly left a lot to be desired. A mid-ninth-century Irish piligrim, passing through Liége on his way to Rome, complained to the local bishop about the conditions in his bed-and-breacfast: "I cannot live in such misery", he exclaimed, "with nothing to eat or drink save the most awful bread and the tiniest particle of dreadful beer." Anothe Irishman writes of the local beer: " as one who throws his boots at it." The great Sedulius Scottus regaled his patron, Bishop Hartgar of Liége, with a long list of grievances, including the really horrible beer. If Sedulius is anything to go by, the Irish on the continent preferred to take their chances with the local wine, rather than risk the worst with the beer.
(c)
Dáibhí Ò Cróinín
Early medieval Ireland, 400-1200, p. 123
New York 2017