The word beer stems from the Anglo saxon word beor which means what?

It was originally thought that beer descended from the old English Word, 'bēor' meaning beer, i.e an alcoholic drink made from fermented barley. That would make sense; the Word deer comes from the old English Word 'dēor' - we often see the sound change from Old English 'ēo' to Modern English 'ee'. Furthermore, the similarity between the Words 'bēor' and 'bere', meaning barley, led further credence to this.

There is a problem, however. The Word 'ealu' which became the Word 'ale' also means a fermented barley based drink. So an alternative hypothesis is that 'bēor' actually meant cider or cyser

• an Apple based alcoholic drink with honey added for extra alcohol
• and the Word beer came from the French via the Belgians who came

up with a radical new technique to making beer, namely boiling the wort before fermenting it. Prior to that, the wort was just run off the MASH and fermented, or just the mash was fermented.

Ealu was still produced in England alongside the newfangled European 'biére', (which incidentally entered the French language via a Germanic Word closely related to the Old English Word 'bēor')

In the alternative hypothesis, 'bēor' then came from an extinct Germanic Word that means drink and is related to the Latin Word 'bibere' meaning 'to drink'. Cider and mead are the oldest fermented drinks because they're so easy to make. 'Cider' also comes from French vie a long circuitous route from Babylonion 'sikara' which, similar to the alternative hypothesis for bear means 'strong drink'.