There is no stronger tie between man and nature,
Than the one that resides in a keg of good beer,
The barley malt, rye and hops noble in stature
But thoughts are divided over which is most dear!
-The Poxy Boggards, Bring Us More Beer.
Beer is good for you. I'd like you to just say that slowly to yourself, let it sink in, then grab a bottle and drink yourself healthy while you read this article.
Beer is an excellent source of B vitamins (except for B12).
There are eight B vitamins in total, and each of them has an important role to play in the human body. Lack of bee… uh I mean B vitamins can cause insomnia, dementia, sensitivity to sunlight, depression and an irregular heart beat. Conversly enough, excessive drinking can frequently cause insomnia, dementia, sensitivity to sunlight, depression and an irregular heart beat. You know what I mean. I've seen the pictures on the internet…
Either way, beer is a fantastic source of all but one of these vitamins- B12. B1 and B2 are also lacking, but are present. Two of these wonderful little vitamins are B-6 and B-3- Niacin and Pyridoxine to their friends. They are very helpful when trying to gain a good nights rest. The fact that in beer, you also get a nice hit of alcohol as well means that a pint before bed can help you sleep, and I can personally vouch for the truth in this.
Drinking sensibly can improve the condition of your heart, as well as health in general.
There have been around 60 studies worldwide concerning this (If you're bored see if you can find them all!), and pretty much all of them agree that the calming effect of a good beer or wine can help you relax and thus put less stress on your heart. Also, in post menopausal women it was found that a drink a day had a marked impact on their cholesterol levels- for the better!
Something of a puzzle for doctors and biologists everywhere is the effect booze has on our kidneys. A study in the American Journal Of Epidemiology in 1999 found that beer drinkers enjoyed a 40% drop in cases of kidney stones. As anyone who has ever had a Kidney stone can tell you, this is a Godsend.
B vitamins are not only used for helping you sleep! They can also do the exact opposite and help with the release of energy. Fatigue can be helped with a sensible input of beer.
Nutritional Information
12 ounces of beer contains the following:
- 150 calories.
- 0g Fat.
- 0g Cholesterol.
- 0g Caffeine
- 0g Nitrates
- 1g Protien
- 13g carbohydrates
- 92% water.
- Magnesium
- Selenium (Can be used to fight off evolving space aliens)
- Potassium
- Phosphorus
- Biotin
- Calcium
- Iron (Loads of this in Guinness!)
- B vitamins: B1, B2, B3, B5, B6, B9, B12
Not bad eh?
The Navvies
The Navvies (Navigator if you're British, Navigational engineer if you're a yank), where the men who built much of the western world's canal and railway systems in the 18th centaury, they where especially popular in Britain. Anyway, these guys where HARD. Take any American football linebacker (Or any Rugby player if you want a real sport), and cross them with Master Chief. These guys weren't built like tanks, tanks would run screaming from these guys. They where so tough they managed to do as much work day by day as machines do in the present on similar projects. Now that's TOUGH. Can you guess what they drank? Ales and porters, pretty much exclusively, to the point where drunkenness was a big problem in some construction sites.
To build them up, they where fed nothing but meat and drank nothing but beer. Later navvies had to make do with bread and soup rather than meat, and thanks to the nutrient value of the beer they where drinking, they could still haul around boulders the size of small people, and tunnel through mountains with little more than a pick axe and a catering size tub of elbow grease.
And you thought present day athletes endorsing a product meant it must be good.
So can I go out and drink myself healthy then?
Sadly not. All the above facts assume that you are drinking about a pint a day, and all this applies to good, proper BEER. That crap you get over the counter in most pubs and clubs here in Britain, (Fosters, Carlsberg e.t.c) is speed produced CRAP. It's not fermented properly, its got loads of chemicals that do no one any good to make it brew faster, keep longer and taste better (the last in this list may be wrong). Alcopops are just horrible (in terms of taste and nutrition).
If you want a decent proper beer, then go to a pub that stocks real ale. There are hundreds, maybe even thousands of different varieties of real ale and beer in the UK alone. Go further a field into the EU and the rest of the world and suddenly you're drowning in a variety of flavors from Scottish highland whiskey ale, to Caledonian Banana ale (tastes a LOT nicer than it sounds). If you live near a JD Weatherspoons pub, keep an eye out for their bi annual world beer festivals. If you're not a fan of Ales, then try real lagers, so much nicer than the aforementioned crap.
Also, something surprisingly few people try is home brewing. Check up on the laws in your country concerning it first though. Here in Britain we enjoy a totally liberal set of home brewing laws: Make whatever you want, as strong as you want, as much of it as you want, as often as you want. Just don't sell it without a license. Here's the clincher- I can make about 5 GALLONS (that's British Gallons, which are bigger than US ones), for about a fiver a pop (For the Americans $10 buys you 6 US gallons). I'm currently toying with the idea of writing an article on home brewing, how it's done and some tips. If you'd like to see this, please let me know in a comment.
So, the moral of the story is, go out and enjoy a good pint! Just choose what you drink wisely, don't overdo it, and ALWAYS have ale served in a tankard or pint mug.
