The most famous Anglo-Saxon riddle having to do with mead, the honey-based beverage of the period, is the one to which you're referring, I'm sure.  Once the honey is brought down from the mountain and made into mead, it becomes "a binder and a scourger."  Its chief characteristic, then, is that it robs one of strength and reason when too much is imbibed.  The riddle goes on to say that men young and old are thrown to earth by the strong drink (obviously falling down drunk). The poem draws to a close with these lines:

Deprived of strength, doughty in speech, robbed of might, he has no rule over his mind, feet, nor hands.

Clearly, the properties of mead are enough to sap one's strength or create a swaggering braggart, until finally one has no control whatsoever.