Drinking Contest: Any Support From the Books?

[Essex]

We must also remember that is was strong wine drunk in large quantaties that made the wood-elf gurards drunk...

Luck of an unusual kind was with Bilbo then. It must be potent wine to make a wood-elf drowsy; but this wine, it would seem, was the heady vintage of the great gardens of Dorwinion, not meant for his soldiers or his servants, but for the king's feasts only, and for smaller bowls, not for the butler's great flagons.

But on the other hand, we can see in the Hobbit that the Dwarves like their ale.

So they carried out the pots of coins, and such food as was un-touched and looked fit to eat, also one barrel of ale which was still full. By that time they felt like breakfast, and being very hungry they did not turn their noses up at what they had got from the trolls' larder. Their own provisions were very scanty. Now they had bread and cheese, and plenty of ale, and bacon to toast in the embers of the fire.

I mean a barrel of ale for breakfast!! So for me the Jury's still out on this one.....