I've said this in the corresponding reddit threads in /r/beer and /r/homebrewing, but I've met Jim Koch on multiple occasions in multiple settings, and I've never seen him not hammered. He's a functioning alcoholic, not a magician.
He is, however, brilliant. He gets beer and marketing beer better than anybody else I've ever met.
Yeah, coming up with tricks to "not get drunk", or searching for cheap booze deals, or anything that is really just out of the way burdensome for the sake of nothing more than "more drink".
I don't buy cheap beer, ever. Not even if I'm asked to get a case for a party. If I'm going to drink, I want something I'll enjoy. Cheap beer is about getting a buzz or getting drunk. It always freaks people out, "you shouldn't have spent so much for a party". Why? I don't see it as a choice. Should I have only opened a can of kidney beans for the dish I brought, too? No, I want to have something that I will enjoy, that others can enjoy, too. It's not just about "filling ourselves to the gills on as little money as possible." But that is how people treat beer.
That's not to say I don't get drunk sometimes. The experience of sitting in an innertube on a lazy river is significantly enhanced by alcohol. A wedding party is significantly enhanced by copious alchol. But most days I want to be productive and make things. I can't code or write well--and certainly can't solder at all--when I'm drunk. I similarly don't watch a lot of television, or read a lot of books. I'd like to fill my time with more productive tasks than consumptive ones.
I agree with your reasoning and preferences, but some of us just like cheap beer for the taste. In Northern California a lot of the breweries focus on hoppy flavors, which I don't prefer. I'll just take a bud. My reasoning? Why pay for expensive beer! A bud tastes fine.
Wasn't expecting this in the comments, but super appreciated. The hops arms race must end. I hope we will all go back to drinking delicious, sessionable lagers soon and realize the IPA/microbrew snobbery mindset so prevalent today is a big mistake, both socially (alienating to the uninitiated and highfalutin) and for the beer drinker's palette (overwhelming, masking flavors).
For what it's worth, the microbrewery scene doesn't have to be what it is today. At it's best it would just be a huge range of subtly different beers to give people more things to explore and find a favorite. As is, there's this undying devotion to IPAs and ever-hoppier tastes. There's nothing wrong with non-microbrew, but I'd be happiest of all to see microbreweries open up to exploring more of the possibilities for beer.
As someone who isn't big on too-much-hops, I've been able to find plenty of interesting microbrews without. As much as I'd certainly a shift away from the so much hops, you needn't feel deprived even in this environment if you keep your eye out.
As to hops, for myself I do enjoy extremely hoppy beers, just not nearly as much as I enjoy less hoppy beers.
In years past, when I went out to bars a lot, I had a few classes of drinks I would buy, depending on my purpose for the night. If I intended to drive home a few hours later after playing some pool, I would just order Bud Light. I was able to drink for the social aspect, it quenched any thirst I had, and at a slow pace because I was playing a lot of pool, it didn't end up intoxicating me all that much. If I didn't have to worry about my ride at all, I would order a more flavorful beer.
I also find cheap American beer to be ideal for the beach.
>I'll just take a bud. My reasoning? Why pay for expensive beer! A bud tastes fine
Can't help but read your reply in a thick southern accent. Personally, if I'm aiming for an aggressive, high volume night, I'll take a busch over a bud.
No, I want to have something that I will enjoy, that others can enjoy, too.
It's worth noting that the "appreciation" of fine beers, wines and spirits is often an excuse to inebriate while convincing oneself that it's actually a higher pursuit. The simple exercise of bifurcating products by price, and assuming that correlates with quality, is flawed.
Thinking through friends and peers, the ones who show the greatest specialization of their drink (only the finest vintages and best, small-brewer beers and long aged bourbon) are the ones who drink the most. But it is shrouded by a classy veneer.
> Thinking through friends and peers, the ones who show the greatest specialization of their drink (only the finest vintages and best, small-brewer beers and long aged bourbon) are the ones who drink the most. But it is shrouded by a classy veneer.
I come from a place where people will polish a 24 in a night. I have an appreciation for fine spirits, but I don't think that I "drink the most," and additionally, when I drink, it's more to enjoy the liquor, then get hammered (though, I do that, too). My appreciation comes from drinking a varied variety of beer, rather than just the same thing ad infinitum.
Anything can be taken to an extreme, but there's a lot of room in the middle for exactly what he's saying.
I rarely drink more than one beer in a sitting. But if the only thing being offered is Budweiser or similar, it'll be zero. I don't take it to an extreme, and am perfectly happy with a Sam Adams or similar decent big names, but I'm not going to waste the calories on something awful.
It's not a matter of "a higher pursuit", just a matter of taste, no different from preferring to drink nothing than, say, Mountain Dew.
Sure there is, but I'm replying specifically to their comment that-
"Cheap beer is about getting a buzz or getting drunk."
Cheap and expensive beer are made with close to identical processes, with the same controls and outcomes. Often beers are "cheap" purely as a function of the scale of the operation, but they still use the same quality ingredients and processes.
People often buy cheap beer because they actually prefer it (just as many, many people prefer lighter beer, which is something that many of my Canadian countrymen can't understand), or because the taste differences are so small that they can't justify the extra expense.
When you find yourself in the position of differentiating yourself from those other people -- that your own drinking is more cultured and justified -- it's time to take a step back and seriously contemplate things, because it's almost always a cover.
I don't know what accounts for it, but cheap bear definitely does not have the same outcomes. Budweiser, Coors, etc. are just not very good.
You're right that tastes can vary. Some people do prefer the cheap stuff, somehow.
But you're applying a blatant double standard here. You're saying that we should realize that some people prefer the cheap stuff, and then simultaneously turning around and saying that "almost always" preferring the expensive stuff is a cover. No, it's just taste.
You have to decide: is it legitimate to prefer different kinds of beer, or is it a cover? If it's a cover, it has to work both ways. If it's not, then you can't accuse people who don't want to drink Miller Lite of being secret alcoholics just because they want something that costs more than 50 cents a can.
There is no double standard at play here. The guy who likes <some craft beer> has found something he appreciates and enjoys, and there is nothing wrong with that.
The guy who elevates himself above the hordes and their cheap beer, on the other hand...it isn't really about the product anymore.
cheap bear definitely does not have the same outcomes.
Some products aren't filtered as much. Some have different blends of ingredients. Some are fermented more or less. And so on. But those things seldom impact the actual price in any material fashion, instead are subjective choices of the brewer based upon their market.
Filtering is interesting, because at one point the premium products (in many categories -- beers, wines, coffee, etc) earned their position because they were filtered more, while the cheap swill of the masses where the slurry products full of bits and grinds. As filtering became mainstream and inexpensive, unfiltered and raw -- doing less -- became the sign of a premium product.
Maple syrup was original graded based on its use as a sugar substitute, so the lightest least maple-y syrup was given the highest grade, and the stuff that actually tastes like maple syrup is not the Grade A stuff.
I've wondered about this for a long time. It's made me feel weird liking the "lower-grade" maple syrup more. I want all the maple-y goodness, not just sugary liquid. Thanks for pointing that out, didn't think I'd learn that in a beer thread.
That's like saying a home made burger from top notch ingredients is made with close to identical processes as a McDonald's one. Except of course that they use worse ingredients and cut on all possible costs as long as it still tastes kind of burger-like.
Unless you disagree that they for example replace a lot of the barley with rice and corn - I don't really see how can you claim it's the same thing.
"Unless you disagree that they for example replace a lot of the barley with rice and corn"
The ingredient lists of the "cheap" beers were, in most cases, set in the 1800s, and remain unchanged. And they were set when rice was much more expensive in the US. And indeed even today rice is neck and neck with barley -- they aren't saving a penny using rice. Instead it was used specifically because it gave a lighter taste, because, again and amazingly, this is a preference of many drinkers. Many Japanese beers are heavy on the rice, and are considered "premium" products for it.
The notions of expensive versus cheap as a patron of a brand are often completely detached from reality.
This isn't true. See the ingredients in your cheap beer. You will see: "Non malted cereals", that is, rice and transgenic corn. More a lot of conservants.
I'm not sure you know what a dichotomy is, but alcoholics span the range from functioning to absolutely crippled, and everywhere in between. Alcoholism is a dependence on and addiction to alcohol. No more, no less.
Jim Koch is able to function fairly well as an alcoholic that many people wouldn't be able to because of the industry he's in.
And as to your other comment, unfortunately, I'm all too familiar with alcoholism and its many forms. There's no such thing as "true alcoholism," there's just addiction.
I have 2 counter examples. My wife's step father would come home from his sales job and drink glass after glass of whiskey and coke. Each was about 15 ounces of whiskey with 1 ounce of coke to give it color (trying to hide how much he drinks). He's a good provider and only a little emotionally abusive to his family. The other example is the woman my wife works with. She is a contract-medical coder that is faster and better than anyone else in the company. She also drinks a bottle of wine with the meal she doesn't eat every night. She is the best employee my wife has as long as she's not in the hospital for electrolyte imbalance.
That's funny, I stopped in to say the same thing. At an "extreme" (high gravity) beer festival in Boston a few years ago he was more intoxicated than my wife and I, and yet managed to make perfect sense. (Maybe I was just too drunk to tell the difference?)
I'm sorry - two disconnected thoughts typed too quickly. He is a pioneering brewer, but based on some of the stories about him drinking so much every night it's hard to imagine him not being an alcoholic.
I don't think you know what a real alcoholic looks like.
Edit: Alcoholism isn't just drinking alcohol all of the time. It is a life threatening and often fatal disease. True alcoholics destroy their lives and the lives of everyone around them.
So downvote me all you want but people who have no experience with the powers of addiction should keep their petty labeling to themself.
The OP is making a blanket statement about a man he has apparently met a few times, and even states that he goes around to various other forums stating the same thing. In my opinion that is extremely rude.
I appreciate that you are trying to raise awareness of more severe, or at least more violent, alcoholism, but at the same time, you are raising denial other forms of alcoholism.
High-functioning alcoholics... "Have difficulty viewing themselves as alcoholics because they do not fit the stereotypical image and because they feel their lives are manageable, [and] avoid recovery help."
Saying that people who are high-functioning are not real alcoholics is just going to make them even less likely to admit they have a problem and seek help.
Both types of alcoholism are important and trying to raise awareness of one by denying the other is not helpful to alcoholics of either type.
I'm a high functioning alcoholic, and denial is extraordinarily strong amongst us (other HFAs). Denial is just another enabler to being essentially blotto all the time.
I lived in complete denial for 15 years before some of my HFA buddies started burning their lives down in rather spectacular ways.
I didn't want my life to serve as a warning to others, so I quit. Luckily, I didn't lose anything along the way, but many have, even many of the HFA's I used to know.
I don't know if you're being snarky or trolling or what but alcoholism comes in many forms. Please don't diminish the situation people are in just because they do their job well.
Just because he drinks a lot (note that this is also part of his profession) doesn't make him an alcoholic.
People love to toss the term around lightly. If you've ever lived with a true alcoholic then you know it's not something to be joked about and it is a life threatening disease.
How would you feel if everyone in this thread was non-chalantly calling John Koch a junkie.
And there is your problem. You think others must be 'joking' when they call someone an alcoholic while that person isn't obviously destroying his life. You are wrong.
News flash: the fact that you know worse cases doesn't mean the less severe cases aren't bad and it doesn't mean that people calling out those cases are joking. Grandparent was saying Jim Koch is drinking in a way that has severe negative consequences for his long-term health.
There are a whole lot of people that are indeed functioning alcoholics: they don't drink themselves into a stupor, but they are constantly buzzed, which has long-term health consequences and impacts their effective personality and behavior in (usually) a bad way.
Skeptics StackExchange has a good takedown of this. TL;DR: Yeast ADH requires a neutral to alkaline environment to work, but the stomach is extremely acidic, so it's not going to do anything.
What about the small intestine? I'm reading that about 80% of alcohol is absorbed there after leaving the stomach and that most of the small intestine has pH between 7-8.
I go to many craft beer festivals just to "taste" new beers. My main goal when attending beer festivals isn't to get drunk, but to taste a diverse list of new beers. It would be a big win for me if I could sample more and get drunk less.
If your goal sincerely is to taste more instead of feeling the effects of alcohol, why not spit the beer out? This is de rigueur among serious wine tasters for exactly this reason.
I have had great luck doing strenuous exercise, drinking moderate amount of water and taking some vitamin b 4-6 hours before drinking. Seems to double my tolerance.
Not a doctor so im just speculating, but wouldn't the ADH still be rendered useless when it goes through the stomach on the way to the small intestine? Perhaps this means it would work going the other direction, lol.
Not necessarily, you'd be surprised just how hardy both the yeast granules (really sporulated yeast) and ADH can be. I've actually done some research in this area (for unrelated reasons) but here's the a "must read" paper from 1975 if you're curious: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1165444/
"were studied in the pH range 4.9--9.9 at 25 degrees C and in the temperature range 14.8--43.5 degrees C at pH 7.05."
Forgive me if I am missing something obvious, but isn't that outside the range of a typical stomach's pH range? If so, how does this study relate to the conditions inside a stomach?
Im basing these questions on what I saw in that skeptic.exchange link posted above, again im a total layman.
Stomach pH ranges between 1-5, what you eat contributes significantly to the variance in pH. The "active" yeast that's sold is actually the inactive spore (not actively budding) and low pH environments promote staying inactive. ADH is produced by metabolically active yeast, which theoretically would be yeast that reaches your intestines (indeed, we have "native" yeast in our intestinal tract).
Whether or not yeast would make it that far and then being to bud and produce ADH again, I couldn't really say. I never looked at human-ingestion of colonies.
ADH itself can be denatured in low pH environments but will renature and self-fold into an active tertiary structure when brought back to neutral/slightly basic pH.
Are you sure the enzyme would need to operate in an acidic environment?
Intact yeast cell membranes would be pretty capable of keeping ions out (thus some pH isolation), but I imagine they would be more permeable to small relatively uncharged substances as ethanol.
I see no immediate reason why not many of the yeast cell might act tiny bioreactors, keeping a somewhat controlled internal environment, where ethanol might diffuse in and be degraded. Can someone here think of any reason for why this would not be plausible?
For all the Asians who flush - I would be very careful about trying this at home. It seems like it'll have the opposite effect of what's intended.
The alcohol breakdown chain reaction in the body (I'm not a chemist) is ethanol -> acetaldehyde -> acetic acid. The ethanol causes your to be "drunk", but the acetaldehyde has some arguably worse effects (headache, tiredness, flush). Asians typically process ethanol -> acetaldehyde way faster than others, but the acetaldehyde -> acetic acid can be really slow. If the yeast is mimicking ADH and not ALDH, you're just going to suffer even more.
Again, I'm not a chemist or a doctor, but from my preliminary internet research and anecdotal testing (though I have quite a few different data points), Famotadine (OTC), and higher levels of APO-Ranitidine (can be prescription) seems to slow the rate of ethanol -> acetaldehyde, balancing out the drunkness effect more, and giving you more time to process the acetaldehyde -> acetic acid. I typically go from maxing out at 2 drinks / 3 hour period, to about 11 drinks / 3 hour period on Ranitidine, given favorable conditions. I've had lower levels of success with Famotadine.
I believe those products you mention are commercially available in the US as Pepcid AC and Zantac. I've personally seen the lessened effect of flush through the use of Pepcid, but there were other side effects. I'll give Zantac a try. Thanks for the info.
I would also recommend supplementing with N-Acetyl-Cysteine - try perhaps ~500mg for each two drinks you consume; experiment to find the right balance for you.
NAC is a precursor to the antioxidant glutathione, which the liver uses during step 2 of the alcohol metabolization process (acetaldehyde > acetic acid). It helps by ensuring the stores of glutathione in your liver are less likely to become depleted when you've had a few drinks or more, thus reducing the buildup of acetaldehyde in your system.
Incidentally, it may also have some efficacy in terms of hangover reduction, even among those unaffected by alcohol-related flushing, due to the same mechanism.
Are you sure it's the Cysteine? According to this paper[1] where test rats received an LD50 dose of acetaldehyde, those that received cysteine had an 80% survival rate; while those that received both cysteine and thiamine had a 100% survival rate. Thiamine and Methylthiazolidine contain sulfur (thio-/thia- is greek for sulfur) where Cysteine does not. It follows that it would be responsible for some foul air.
It's likely that what you are taking may contain both, is this the case?
For all the bio-hackers looking to experiment tonight, it seems to make sense to:
1) take dry yeast to help the alcohol dehydrogenase break the alcohol down into acetaldehyde to stop you from feeling drunk
2) take both thiamine (optional) and cysteine to help the acetaldehyde dehydrogenase break acetaldehyde down into acetic acid to stop you from feeling hungover.
Assuming you just take a bunch of dry yeast, and that it has any effect at all you'll probably still have a bad hangover. Then again, chaining all these things together without a solid understanding about what's going on probably isn't too smart either.
Good points. It is worth mentioning that cysteine (non -acetyl varieties) isn't as stable/bioavailable as n-acetyl-cysteine; some people sell plain cysteine but it's not worth it- just stick with NAC if you're looking for a supplement.
I would note NAC does have a sulfhydryl group (as indicated by the -SH in the molecular diagram), so it does contain sulfur at some level.
And if hangover reduction is your goal, there are a number of other things that contribute to hangover symptoms that you also need to manage in order to reduce their effects:
- dehydration (drink a bunch of fluids before bed)
- depletion of electrolytes (generally speaking, make sure to eat/drink something salty)
- depletion of B vitamins (thiamine/B1 in particular tends to be depleted among alcoholics - supplement with a B complex high in thiamine; some studies show reduction of hangover symptoms with very high B6 intake(very high levels-1200mg) source: Khan MA, Jensen K, Krogh HJ. Alcohol-induced hangover. A double-blind comparison of pyritinol and placebo in preventing hangover symptoms)
I don't experience this at all. If I've had too much NAC (more than 2-3 grams), I can smell it in urine, but that's all.
Different people may metabolize it different ways, of course - and there may be variance in the available brands. I've had good experiences with GNC and 'NOW foods' NAC offerings (no personal preference between the two, and I'm sure there are other good quality brands out there).
It may also be that he just paces better and has a higher tolerance than most. There can also be other "side effects" of downing 1 serving of yeast + yogurt per beer you plan to have so perhaps that helps limit his intake as well (if he sticks to the pre-plan), heck pre-planning probably helps more than anything.
Not only that, but ingesting large amounts of live yeast can (does)cause explosive gastrointestinal results. A problem familiar to any home brewer that has consumed especially yeasty young beer.
If you get yeast in your intestines and you're taking antibiotics, you can get what's called Auto-Brewery Syndrome. The yeast in your intestines starts to ferment sugars and you get drunk all the time.
If you manage to increase the concentration of alcohol in your stomach to levels when ADH2 kicks in (and keep sugar concentration low), it might work. But where is the fun in drinking without getting drunk?!
I'd love nothing more than to be able to drink without getting drunk. Being able to knock back a bottle of wine with dinner and then a second bottle after dinner without any side effects would be dream come true. I love the pleasurable effects of alcohol as much as the next person, but 4 times out of 5 I'm only after the flavor and being forced to stop drinking something that tastes awesome due to the effect it's about to have on me totally sucks.
> I love the pleasurable effects of alcohol as much as the next person, but 4 times out of 5 I'm only after the flavor
I wonder how much of your perception of the "awesome" flavor is skewed by the pleasurable effects of alcohol, though. Like, the more you drink, the happier you get, and the happier you are, the better everything tastes.
Right, so why would you want to waste good wine when everything tastes great? From experience, the more intoxicated I get, the lower my capacity for actually enjoying what I'm drinking is. The best time for tasting is your very first drink, all downhill from there.
I find almost the opposite. The first couple of glasses of beer or wine of the evening is almost always the one that tastes the best. At the end of a long evening of drinking things just taste less and more muted and I'm far more happy drinking 'less good' drinks than I would be at the beginning of the evening.
Flavor-wise they range from not very good to absolutely terrible, kind of defeating the whole purpose. Even the very best non-alcoholic wines are only marginally better than the very worst alcoholic wines.
The best non-alcoholic beers are, relatively speaking, better than non-alcoholic wine, but the selection is basically limited to fairly mundane German style lagers and even the best ones (Jever is probably the best I've tasted) are inferior to even most mass-produced lager.
Clausthaller (not the canned), Paulaner Helles and Hefe-Weiß, Erdinger Weiß, Lämmbrau, and Hacker Pschorr Helles are all very tasty tipples. Spaten Helles is wretched, and Löwenbrau Helles is surprisingly not too terrible, given the regular stuff is garbage.
The non-alcoholic Erdinger Weissbier is probably the best non-alcoholic beer I've tasted.
You need to get "into" it a little before you realize it actually does taste like beer, except without the alcohol, and how much part of the flavour alcohol actually is (even with the relatively low 5% ABV that most beers are).
Also, and this may differ per regulations where you are, but many "non-alcoholic" beers do in fact contain up to 0.5% alcohol (including the Erdinger Weizener). So you'd have to drink 10 of them to feel the buzz of one normal beer, but I'd expect by that time you'd be feeling something else, over the buzz from a single beer :-P
I've had extremely low alcohol wine that tastes pretty close to every other glass of wine I've had. (But then I'm someone who thinks most wine tastes the same.)
It's also not available at every bar/restaurant you go to. Shame though. If governments were serious about combating the abuse of alcohol they should make it mandatory (including on tap).
Because as someone who is very sensitive to alcohol, I have spent my adult life resisting pressure to drink more. I often end up with 2 day hangovers, because yet again I have allowed someone to convince me that one more drink won't hurt. If this works I will be using it...
Be sure to read the rest of this thread (and possibly the link to the Reddit discussion), it seems that while it might prevent drunkness, it doesn't do much to prevent the hangover part.
There are occasions where you want to get drunk and other occasions where you want others to be drunk. Especially when you are a lightweight and have to go out with people from the office etc. Lots of opportunities there.
Make no mistake, this is one of those "one weird tip" articles.
It doesn't surprise me that the tip doesn't appear to work (based on the links others have posted), because the article is really a (hopefully viral) marketing vehicle for Sam Adams - in a couple of short paragraphs, they touch on their glass, their new IPA, their social programs, their new Belgian quadruple, and some of their existing line.
It finishes up with some "secret", broadly dismisses established science (by stating that companies didn't pick up Prequel just because they didn't want some liability that they wouldn't have been liable for anyways), offers no real
What makes it interesting is that this article seems to resound with the more technical people that I know. It's like linkbait for smart people...
I think this is probably broscience bullshit. Yeasts produce ethanol from sugars and tend to leave a lot of excess lying around when they finish.
If you want a biological assistant, what you really want is to swallow the "mother of vinegar" acetobacter culture biofilm from unpasteurized, naturally fermented vinegar, and eat it with something dense and sugary before you drink. The acetobacters actually metabolize ethanol into acetic acid and survive in highly acidic environments such as the stomach. As they are aerobic bacteria, you will also need to swallow air while drinking. The amount of time that alcohol remains in your stomach makes it unlikely that you will make more than a tiny difference in the amount of alcohol that enters your bloodstream.
But it is much more scientifically plausible than baker's yeast.
An actual, significant reduction in drunkenness from ingested alcohol would have to overstock the liver with ADH1B, thiamine (vitamin B1), ALDH2, ACSS2, and n-acetyl-L-cysteine (Acetadote). This would require an intravenous injection before you start drinking, and is probably very dangerous in the absence of any real medical necessity.
A clever piece of marketing. The hip trend is away from IPAs and towards Belgians, specifically Quads. In this article I learned that Jim Koch, founder of Sam Adams is sick of IPAs and wants a good Belgian(he's hip kids!). Sure enough, his company makes a Quad and a stout! Man, Sam Adams is cool again!
I had a friend who told me that drinking a glass of milk before a night of drinking was the special secret. Either way "drinking all night and not getting drunk" sounds more like a Twilight Zone episode to me. I don't really drink at all, but it sounds like that would be a nightmare.
I'm also wondering about how he deals with the inevitable farts? Yeasts eating sugars = gas which is why beer and everything else is fizzy.
My friends and I have found the level of drunkenness really all depends on how quickly you drink your first 2-3 drinks. We're Australian, I like to think we've had some practice.
If you drink them down fast, you'll get a buzz, and feel quite drunk after not many more. No matter what you do for the rest of the night, you'll be more drunk than usual for the number of drinks you've had.
If you drink the first 2-3 drinks slowly, you'll have one of those nights where you're not as drunk as you normally would be for the number of drinks you've had. Sure, if you drink a ton, you'll be drunk, but you won't be "wasted".
Tip: If you ever find yourself in some kind of drinking contest, have two beer before the contest even starts, but take 30-45 minutes to drink each beer. You won't be nearly as drunk later on.
Is there a scientific explanation that anyone could offer or a theory that you have about this? This sounds interesting and I am curious as to why it happens.
My theory is that the liver can only process so much alcohol at a time (or rather, it has a rate at which it can process alcohol), via the enzymes that it uses to do its job. If you hammer it with three drinks in rapid succession, it uses up its ability to filter alcohol out and has to recharge its stock of ingredients (possibly hindered by all the leftover alcohol in your system, messing up your biochemistry and dehydrating you). If you space it out, it has time to process the alcohol as it comes in, keeping your body from being overwhelmed.
Kind of like how a levy can hold back millions of litres of water hitting it… unless it all shows up at once, in which case it gets overwhelmed and all kinds of problems stem from there.
Not recalling all the details of my physiology here, but there is an additional ethanol metabolism pathway that is not engaged or not fully engaged until someone is very very drunk or is chronically pretty damn drunk. IIRC, the enzyme involved does not put out the same toxins through oxidation that affect the nervous system and give that drunk look. Instead you get the 'functional alcoholic'.
Based on what other people are saying here, my guess is, that's what we've got going on here. My common sense says there is probably a measurable, but insignificant effect by the enzyme in the yeast.
Edit: also, the theory is just that the stomach is a mixing bowl, so the poor man's field test is here is pretty trivial, maybe I'll have some fun tonight with a blender, some yeast, and a bottle of cheap hooch.
Or tea. It's surprisingly refreshing, and contains some of the bitterness that beer has, but plain water lacks. Now, how about a nice black tea with some aromatic hops for finish. Delicious, nutritious, and non-intoxicating.
This might prevent you from getting drunk, but the result is going to be some terrible gas. Anyone who homebrews will know this because of those times you've drank beer that still had tons of yeast in suspension or when they accidentally drank the sediment.
Serious question: What is the purpose of "drinking all night" and not getting drunk? To me, the phrase "all night" implies "a lot" or at least "relatively frequently during the course of the evening".
Why would you want to drink a bunch of alcohol and not get drunk? If not becoming drunk was the goal, why wouldn't you just, you know, drink something non-alcoholic?
Despite the rather juvenile headline, I found this pretty interesting. Makes a lot of sense for someone that does a lot of beer tasting and wants to stay coherent.
Not an expert here, but what about good old olive oil? There is a rumor that drinking a couple of teaspoons of oil before driking will make it longer to absorb the alcohol and you might get less drunk. I wonder how true is that technique. ..
Hell yes! As far as I'm concerned a great wine is probably among the most delicious things you can put in your mouth, with great whiskys, rums, cognacs and beers coming not far behind. Being able to drink as much as I want without any of the side effects would be a dream come true.
> Hell yes! As far as I'm concerned a great wine is probably among the most delicious things you can put in your mouth ...
Wait -- your answer doesn't even respond to the OP's question, which was whether alcohol tastes good. Alcohol (ethyl alcohol) has no taste. All the drinks you list could in principle be created without any alcohol content, and some of them are. Would you express the same enthusiasm for non-alcoholic equivalent drinks?
> Being able to drink as much as I want without any of the side effects would be a dream come true.
But most alcoholic drinks can be duplicated without any alcohol and taste exactly the same (because ... remember ... alcohol has no taste), so you can get what you say you want. What remains to be seen is whether you really want what you say.
But it does have a very distinct mouthfeel which is part of taste sensation. But mainly alcohol is very good a taking up the flavour compounds of anything you add to it. This is a really big factor in what makes alcoholic beverages distinct. Also the fermentation process breaks things down and releases flavour compounds from the thing fermenting in a way that is hard or impossible to get other ways.
But most alcoholic drinks can be duplicated without any alcohol and taste exactly the same
If this actually is the case, and I very much doubt it, why hasn't anyone done it? All non-alcoholic wines I've tested on the market today taste quite bad and bear only a passing resemblance to their alcoholic counterparts. If someone could make a non-alcoholic wine that could hold its own in a blind taste test against a collection of reasonable even just $20 bottles I'd be be beyond happy. I would probably even be willing to pay a premium over the cost of an equivalent bottle of alcoholic wine.
If its so easy as you claim it to be why are all current commercial efforts so incredibly far off the mark?
Never suffered from hangover, but I have read about it. It seems to be mostly dehydration. If you drink one glass of water for each time you urinated the night you drank before you go to sleep I wonder if your hydration level would be the same.
Might be. Think there might be some psychology too.
Sometimes I'll go out to a bar and get absolutely shitfaced drunk (8 double G&Ts, for instance) and wake up the next morning feeling fine. I'll pour myself one drink at home before bed and wake up the next morning feeling like death.
A bit of energy exertion to walk to the bus stop and get home may have made all the difference.
Same as non-caloric foods I guess. The taste. I would love to drink beer at work. But getting drunk is not what I want. Some people like wine like that. I doubt that stands for spirits.
Protip: Prefer alcohol-free beverages. Works all the time.
Alcohol doesn't bring anything to the table except a false sense of belonging and elation. If you need to do that ALL NIGHT to feel good around friends and people in general, then you might need to sit down and ask yourself some serious questions.
He is, however, brilliant. He gets beer and marketing beer better than anybody else I've ever met.