Alcohol played an integral part in Norse culture. People drank ale more than water because the brew had to be boiled as part of the process and so was safer to drink. The Norse of Scandinavia had four main types of fermented beverage: ale, mead, fruit wine, and syra (basically fermented milk). These were all initially made and served by women and were brewed in the home until men involved themselves in the process and it became a commercial and, finally, religious endeavor once monks became brewers.
This is a companion discussion topic for the original content at https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1307/norse-alcohol--the-mead-of-poetry/.