I heard that in medieval age people only drink beer because the water is really bad. So, what did women drink at that time? Were they allowed to drink alcohol?
Before I proceed to give any directions about brewing, let me mentionsome of the inducements to do the thing. In former times, to set about to
show to Englishmen that it was good for them to brew beer in their houses
would have been as impertinent as gravely to insist, that they ought to
endeavour not to lose their breath; for, in those times, (only forty years
ago,) to have a _house_ and not to brew was a rare thing indeed. Mr.
ELLMAN, an old man and a large farmer, in Sussex, has recently given in
evidence, before a Committee of the House of Commons, this fact; that,
_forty years ago_, there was not a labourer in his parish that did not
_brew his own beer_; and that _now_ there is _not one that does it_,
except by chance the malt be given him. The causes of this change have
been the lowering of the wages of labour, compared with the price of
provisions, by the means of the paper-money; the enormous tax upon the
barley when made into _malt_; and the increased tax upon _hops_. These
have quite changed the customs of the English people as to their drink.
They still drink _beer_, but, in general, it is of the brewing of _common
brewers_, and in public-houses, of which the common brewers have become
the owners, and have thus, by the aid of paper-money, obtained a
_monopoly_ in the supplying of the great body of the people with one of
those things which, to the hard-working man, is almost a necessary of
life.
36. The _kind of beer_, for a labourer's family, that is to say, the_degree of strength_, must depend on circumstances; on the numerousness of
the family; on the season of the year, and various other things. But,
generally speaking, beer _half_ the strength of that mentioned in
paragraph 25 will be quite strong enough; for that is, at least, one-third
stronger than the farm-house "_small beer_," which, however, as long
experience has proved, is best suited to the purpose. A judicious labourer
would probably always have some _ale_ in his house, and have small beer
for the general drink. There is no reason why he should not keep
_Christmas_ as well as the farmer; and when he is _mowing_, _reaping_, or
is at any other hard work, a quart, or three pints, of _really good fat
ale_ a-day is by no means too much. However, circumstances vary so much
with different labourers, that as to the _sort_ of beer, and the number of
brewings, and the times of brewing, no general rule can be laid down.
The answer depends enormously on time & place & social class. The very poor drank water, generally, even if the only water was bad, because they couldn't afford anything else. The very poor died in droves of the effects of bad water. Very poor children had shockingly high mortality around the time of weaning because of it.
In southern Europe the normal water-alternative was wine. (Often diluted with water.) No fine vintages -- wine was typically drunk within a year or 2 of the harvest. And it didn't come out of bottles either -- the technology of wine corks is really post-medieval. The means to keep wine drinkable for more than a few years were limited, & mostly involved fortifying it with more sugar to make it more alcoholic (like port or sherry), which also made it a lot more expensive because sugar was rare & costly & local sweeteners like honey didn't work as well for this purpose.
By-products of wine inc. vinegar & verjuice. Both might be used in making beverages of a sort.
In places where apples & pears were grown, cider (or perry) was a very common alternative to water. This was an alcoholic brew, not fruit juice. The nature of it varied widely, local versions might be more wine-like or beer-like depending on the way local people liked it & made it. Rarely very high alcohol content, though.
And of course there was beer and ale. Medieval beers were generally not filtered like modern styles, so the liquid was sometimes a lot soupier than we are used to, and it was a way to preserve the nutritional value of grain as well as a thing to drink -- it was a dietary alternative to bread. Small beer, very low alcohol, was the common daily drink. In parts northern Europe hops were added to the brew as a preservative, but not everywhere. Hops arrived in England in the early 16c; before then, unhopped ale was universal there, and the introduction of hops was viewed with some suspicion as a foreign innovation.
As for women being allowed to drink... in Europe at least that was never a question. Everybody drank whatever was on offer. Beer, ale and cider were made domestically, by the household for the household, and mostly made by women. In parts of England it was common that every household with a surplus of ale might do business as an alehouse, selling by the glass to the neighbors -- it was said in some villages that every house was an alehouse. Alehouses, of course, were operated by alewives.
Honey beer, aka mead, was pretty much exclusive to the north, and replaced by actual beer when grain or fruit production allowed. It was not as widespread or popular as medieval reenactors like to pretend.