Home

On:

It’s not the alcohol, it’s the TASTE–which is a trigger (for beer drinkers, anyway) for happiness.

The taste of beer, without any effect from alcohol itself, can trigger dopamine release in the brain, which is associated with drinking and other drugs of abuse.

Using brain imaging, researchers tested 49 men with two scans, one in which they tasted beer and the second in which they tasted Gatorade. They were looking for evidence of increased levels of dopamine, the "happiness hormone." The scans showed significantly more dopamine activity following the taste of beer than the sports drink.
read more

On:

Early cultures separated into tribes (something many countries still do) in order to keep themselves safe. But they needed to mix with other tribes as well–in order to spread their DNA around, as well as to make friends.

In the March 17th edition of the New York Times, Jeffrey P. Kahn writes: "These lifesaving social instincts didn’t’ readily lend themselves to exploration, artistic expression, romance, inventiveness and experimentation–the human drives that make for a vibrant civilization."

For that, Keller says, "We needed beer." It’s thought that beer brewing started 10,000 years ago.
read more

On:

In the 15th century, when Europeans first began moving people and goods across the Atlantic, a microscopic stowaway somehow made its way to the caves and monasteries of Bavaria. The stowaway, a yeast that may have been transported from a distant shore on a piece of wood or in the stomach of a fruit fly, was destined for great things.
read more

On:

If you want to lose weight, maybe you should drink less beer. It turns out that beer may make a great new biofuel for cars (and this may be a better use for it!) So don’t drink and drive–drive on drink (and lose some of that beer gut). Biologists don’t even need beer to do it–they plan to use brewery WASTE.

Working with engineers at Anheuser-Busch, they took samples of bioreactor sludge from several breweries over the course of a year and analyzed the gene sequences of the microbes in it. One of the microbial populations in the sludge produces methane gas which Anheuser-Busch already uses to power its plants, saving the company millions of dollars every year.
read more