October was a colloquial term for ale, presumably brewed that month.
That had to be some DAMN fine beer.
Looks like ergot food poisoning. But did they stop brewing in November? or February? I doubt it - and nobody listed as dying from those months, weak or not. It is like the diarist Landucci recorded about a plague epidemics in late 1400s Florence [on a lunar eclipse day 3 people died, and their corpses were collected, "the influence of the Moon being so strong"].