I do believe in vino veritas. There are lots of people who control their nastiness when sober but, if a person's nasty when drunk, I wouldn't bet they're nice at home sober. Any pub landlord/lady would agree: nice people are nice drunks.
YY to everybody who's said it never changes! It just wears different clothes and goes in & out of fashion. We're Northern Europeans historically and, I don't know about you, but I find a crowd of pissed-up Germans just as edifying as Brits. Scandinavians go bloody bonkers when they can afford some booze. (Generalising, of course, as we are here.)
The beer, Porter, which used to be drunk as we now drink tea, was a strong stout. It's quite wrong to assume the beer was weak because it was drunk in such vast quantities. In apple counties, they drank cider the same way - this was the cloudy cider that now goes by amusing names to reflect how strong it is! Children drank the beer and cider, too.
Northern Europeans genetically have a much higher tolerance for alcohol than most other human varieties, probably because of the brewing/boiling thing. We've always been drunkards, too, though it doesn't seem to have stopped us getting things done :)
I am most annoyed that my legendary ability to drink has suddenly vanished! I guessed it would happen one day ... but I miss it.