No doubt. And while the ethyl alcohol is the same, there's quite a difference between the potency of fermented and distilled (though I've made some fairly strong hard cider). That's not to say one can't become a "beer alcoholic"... several family members have given it the old college try.
But I expect the "beer" used in place of unsafe drinking water (way back when) was weak as dishwater. Hell, I'm sure the kiddies drank it too. The alcohol was surely more an antiseptic than an intoxicant.
I'm sure it was, and that kids drank it too, because alcohol didn't have the stigma that it has now, and actually, "way back when", it was very likely stronger -- you read a lot in histories about "unwatered wine," or "new wine", which was FAR stronger than what passes for wine now, and I know that beer produced outside the US is often twice as potent, which is maybe one reason why furriners laugh at American beer.
Back then, they had a lot more to worry about than the idea that they might one day become "alcoholic" -- such as typhoid, typhus, cholera, etc etc etc -- just surviving long enough to become a drunk was a real problem, back then.
Hence beer instead of water.
Andria