It is rather common today to put the worst construction of Noah getting drunk after the flood and accuse him of being a drunkard based on this single incident. Valerius Herberger gives us a different view. The picture Herberger paints is Noah, after laboring throughout the growing and harvesting season, celebrates all the Lord has provided with a feast.
… With this, Noah took another sip [of wine] and thanked God for granting success to his labors. So as pious Noah sat amusing himself sip by sip, imbibing the noble juice of the vine with increasing generosity, he fell, quite by accident, into the state of drunkenness; for he did not yet know that this noble drink could do harm when taken to excess. He presently lost his balance, fell over in his tent, remaining lying as naked and bare as a rock, and forgot all good domestic propriety and decency.
Here you see that no kitchen is free of broken pots. Only Christ is without sin, so no saint is ever without fault. It may furthermore be seen that old seasoned officials and careworn souls who, for the frailty of their head, unexpectedly fall into a stupor after a single drink, should not be hastily handed over to the devil. Here I’m sure some “carnival brother” will say, “Now that’s a verse for me! After all, if Noah drank himself silly and flouted all decency, I can, too. If I happen to do some unseemly things, it doesn’t matter. It’s been done before,” Peace, brother! Noah’s affair has nothing to do with your filth. All his life long, Noah only crossed the line once. How often have you gone overboard? Perhaps more than 360 times a year, or perhaps even three times a day? Enough, you speak to your own same! Noah did not do this on purpose and knowingly, but, as a man full of sorrow, fell into it quite unsuspectingly. You, on the other hand, fully aware, wantonly seek to fill yourself like a wash-basin. This is all wrong. From Noah you are not to learn to get drunk but to be wary of strong drink, lest like him you fall in the muck and make someone stumble. If you wish to be merry, by all means be merry. God would happily grant you a good drink and nourishing things to eat. But when you eat, drink, or draw a breath, forget not God and your own death—nor the death of Jesus Christ. To this end, men long ago used to have a picture of Jesus’ cross put in the bottom of their tankards. “Go to the table as to the altar,” says Bernard. “The time for eating is right and pleasant when people remember that Christ is present,” they used to say long ago.
Everyone in the world ought to have sympathized with Noah, since he became drunk by accident.
Herberger, Valerius The Great Works of God: Parts One and Two: The Mysteries of Christ in the Book of Genesis, Chapters 1-15 340-341