The myth is not clearly defined at the start, but it goes that people avoided water because alcoholic drinks were safer to drink than water. What you're hinting at is that people often prefer to drink something else for flavor/variety/intoxication, which is just as true today. The article does seem to debunk the myth that they were avoiding it for health reasons however.
I think this is adequately addressed in the article as well:
>Did people in the time prefer alcoholic drinks? Probably, and for the same reason most people today drink liquids other than water: variety and flavor. A young man in a tenth century Saxon colloquy is asked what he drinks and answers: “Beer if I have it or water if I have no beer.” This is a clear expression of both being comfortable with water and preferring beer.
The article debunks the idea that there was some sort of blanket fear of water. It makes it pretty clear that when clean water was available and recognized as clean, that people had no problem drinking it.
But I've never heard the myth that people avoided drinking even seemingly clean water. I've always heard that many people didn't have regular access to clean drinking water (particularly in non-Roman cities) would drink alcohol as a safe substitute.
That might possibly be the case. But then, where is any of the academic evidence? In general or even for particular settlements? There seems to be plenty of evidence saying that people were fine drinking water, there seems to be a distinct lack of evidence for the "people were afraid of the water" theory.
I think this is adequately addressed in the article as well:
>Did people in the time prefer alcoholic drinks? Probably, and for the same reason most people today drink liquids other than water: variety and flavor. A young man in a tenth century Saxon colloquy is asked what he drinks and answers: “Beer if I have it or water if I have no beer.” This is a clear expression of both being comfortable with water and preferring beer.