Discovering our forefathers and mothers brewed beer (and mead) during the Regency era (and since the beginning of time itself) is not a new thing. It’s long been known that beer then is nothing like beer now (it had lower alcohol content) and was the preferred drink for most in that era (fresh water was not a thing back in ye olden days). What does surprise people, however, is discovering people who would have thought not have drunk or brewed beer, such as our Jane, did indeed do such things.
From Vine Pair:
Austen the brew master. Her beer of choice, spruce beer, is brewed with the buds of a spruce tree, which give off citrus and pine flavors — we’d like to think she’d be an IPA fan today. Spruce was an important source of vitamin C in the 1800s and was useful during long winters without fresh fruit. Beer was simply the spoonful of sugar that helped the medicine go down.