SC - etymology of beer

[Christina van Tets]

Hello the List!

According to my old linguistics lecturer, who was into brewing in his spare 
time (first academic I've ever heard of who had spare time), beer comes from 
the old Anglo-Germanic word for barley (bere) and ale comes from a Gothic 
word aluir, which meant to hallucinate.

Thomas can probably correct me on this, though.

Cairistiona

BTW, I was under the impression that hops came into England fairly late, but 
were used in the Low Countries for some time before that.  Are we being too 
Anglo-centric with our 'periodicity' here?
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