That other « Beer Feeling »

In social settings I don't normally drink high ABV beers, so for me beer is way easier to regulate my intake, knowing when to stop doesn't hit me all at once, and normally when drinking beer I find that I am in a pretty chill place. I found out at a young age when drinking bourbon that when I was in an awkward social setting, shit went bad real quick

 

1x 12oz. Beer=1x 5oz. glass of wine=1x 1.5oz. shot of hard stuff. If only it was that simple.

I get a different feel from beer, wine and liquor, and a different feel from high hopped and low hopped beers. I believe there are both physical and psychological factors in play. Lightly hopped, malty Beers provide a mellow buzz while boldly hopped ones provide an uplifting buzz.

Booze consumption in general is usually a social event unless you're George Thorogood.
Beer is my choice for the long-haul sessions.
Cool idea for a topic, Cheers.

P.S. On weekends I’m the guy from the Jim Beam commercial who loudly proclaims, “You need a Dark Beer”.

 

In my eyes every sip is paying homage to the long history beer has had in mankinds existence.

 

I think it's interesting that several posts have brought up a comparison to cannabis.

As I'm sure most know, cannabis owes its effects to dozens of cannabinoids which exist in various concentrations across strains, and this is why, in simplified terms, a strain containing primarily CBD has very different effects from one primarily containing THC.

Alcoholic beverages owe their intoxicating effects strictly to ethyl alcohol.

So after extracting the cannabinoids from several strains of cannabis you would be left with different ratios of cannabinoids that would produce various intoxicating effects, while distilling whiskey and beer down to ethyl alcohol results in the same single chemical that should produce the exact same intoxicating effect.

That being said when we consume things we obviously do not do so in a vacuum -- we use all of our sensory inputs and I do not mind if my appreciation for beer results in a more pleasurable experience compared to consuming alcoholic beverages I prefer less. Whether the beverage is carbonated or contains sugar will also result in a faster uptake which will impact how the intoxication is perceived. The mood that you are in when you consume the beverage will have an impact. All of these things can be true, but these variables are also not necessarily tied to a particular type of drink.

If there is some truth to the notion that hops can have a positive impact on mood that may be an additional aspect worth considering, though I think more research is needed.
https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28742505/

 

I’ve never had different “buzzes” so I always assumed it was a placebo effect type situation. Interesting to hear so many people have a different point of view.

 

If I drink an ipa i'll have the best nap ever after. I honestly gotta stop drinking them immediately after work.

 

Beer makes me wanna get my Psycho Dwarf on

 

I agree. I sooo miss that wonderful beer feeling other types of alcoholic beverages never provided. Doc lets me use cannabis, though, which I enjoy greatly, but nothing is able to replace that wonderful beer feeling, just makes me so loose, happy, and upbeat.

BTW I see there is dissension about my own and others' experiences of different buzzes from beer than from other alcoholic beverages. I attribute this difference in buzzes to the role played by our gut in mood and thought that is only now beginning to be researched. I started reading about this when my own complete change of food and beverage intake also produced a change in personality I could not understand. Very interesting and cutting edge research for those so inclined.

 

No. You are in a place that the beverage has allowed for 100s of years. You well stated what is so nice about beer and its sedative and energizing magic. I know what you mean....

 

This is something I've thought about but never had the scientific expertise, tools and/or study to test because I'm just an idiot that drinks beer: how the combination of malts, hops and yeast generate different types of intoxication.

Hops are genetically related to cannabis. Cannabis has varying strains with wildly varying THC and CBD proportions, by strain and by consumption pathway. Those proportions affect people on an individual basis in very different ways. Some of that is biological, and some of that is the chemical composition of those strains. Is it so wild to think that hops, the cousin of those, in combination with the other components of beer, produce differing effects across a spectrum?

We do have a "gut brain" which controls certain parts of our autonomic nervous system. We are literal walking oceans of micro-organisms. They're responsible for a lot of things we have no control over. Do yeast/hops have an affect on that? If so, what effect and to what degree? Do different hops and different yeast strains have varying effects, per strain and per person?

This as far as I can tell with present data is the layout of how beer (and alcohol in general) works on people but I still think someone much smarter and more well-equipped than me can dispel the crazy drunken shit that I put forward earlier in the post. I just think it's fun to think about.

 

I witnessed the effects upon my thinking, mood, personality, and desires of feeding my own gut a completely different diet. I believe in future we will understand this "secret mind" much better, and that it will be a key part of future physical and mental health regimens.

It isn't unreasonable to conjecture with our present levels of knowledge of our gut microbiomes that "feeding" grain, grain malt, yeast, hops and alcohol to this biome that includes C. cerevisiae and other yeasts (5% by number, larger percentage by weight), and is connected to the mind, would produce a mood effect different than feeding it alcohol and water (spirits), or fruit flesh, alcohol, and dead yeast (wine).

 

The questions that you pose or allude to are fine and meaningful inquiries. I have always believed there to be more about beer than alcohol. I know that my Mother's family is traced back to the 800s and I swear that beer is a genetic "memory" that binds multiple generations past and coming...They grew barley and were agronomists and invented machinery deep into time. The Baron Von Poellnitz came to America to develop cotton harvesting tools that could help the demise of slavery. He was in cahoots with Washington and Jefferson and we know these folks to be great thinkers bound by their culture.

 

This is only true if you are drinking ethanol. Or perhaps vodka. All other alcoholic beverages that I'm aware of contain some number of other chemicals whose impact on our psychological state may or may not be understood

 

I do think more research is needed here, but ethanol is the only known psychoactive substance among alcoholic beverages (even absinthe's wormwood is questionable), so strictly speaking in terms of our current scientific understanding this is the only chemical that should be having a direct impact on our cognition.

There is certainly research demonstrating that gut flora can have an impact on mood and we know it's involved in the regulation of important neurotransmitters, so I'm not suggesting that only psychoactive chemicals can influence our mood. What I am suggesting is that it's the ethanol in alcoholic beverages that is primarily responsible for what we perceive as its "effects", otherwise we should all be exclusively drinking N/A beer.

If beer does have an impact on gut flora I would expect that it would not be an immediate one, as gut flora changes would need to occur over time. So any perceived benefits to mood from the other substances in beer should be experienced even when not drinking beer, and in that case I don't know that I would consider the beverage to be having an immediate impact on mood so much as a generalized impact. Would this count as a "beer feeling" if it's felt even when not consuming beer?

 

Exactly. This whole discussion (as it did those years ago) can become a battle between pedantry and experience. It hasn’t this time (yet), but the specific and limited properties of ethyl alcohol are not a hill I’d want to die on.

 

I don't think we can make this statement with our present level of understanding. My opinion, based on what I've read, is it is just as likely we also have immediate change to sensibilities caused by the "gut mind".

 

Hence the reason why I always say I'm not an alcoholic, I'm a beer-aholic. Hoppy beer in particular. There are open bottles of liquor in my house leftover from parties and old roommates, but I almost never drink any of it. Beer is the only bevvy that scratches the itch. I'll have wine occasionally but, again, no hops, so not as satisfying.