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Health Benefits of Organic Beer

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As the world we live in becomes more and more toxic, eating (and drinking) organic is the most fundamental change towards health that we can effect in our daily lives. With new poisons in the air and the water every day, it only makes sense to cut down on the poisons in any way you can. For those of you new to the concept of Organic foods, it is food grown without pesticides or chemical fertilizers. If it is food that contains many different ingredients, such as beer, then chemical additives and preservatives are also excluded from the product. Organic food and beer help your body to process that food and drink more efficiently – with less of these toxins involved, your liver functions more smoothly. A healthy liver is something that every beer fan should promote in their lifestyle. Although organic products cost a little more, the health benefit – and the taste – is well worth it.

It all started with “health food”. A trend started in the 1960’s to really look closely at how our food was made. People started to discover that most of the food at the grocery store was either sprayed with poisonous pesticides or jam packed full of weird preservatives and chemicals. The Health food store quickly became an important part of the daily routine of eating healthy. Foods found there were local, fresh, or made in a way that was “closer to nature”. As far as beer is concerned, it was the health food stores that first started to carry microbrews, and especially organic beers.

It is true that organic products cost more, and organic beer is no exception. The question is, what price are you willing to pay for food that has never been sprayed with poisons and other chemicals? There is probably no better way to spend your money than on the quality of the food you eat and the beer you drink. Buying organic supports farmers and brewers that have a commitment to making the world a better place – and not poisoning the earth or you. If you consider the grand scale of large scale commercial farming operations in this country, we are lucky that the organic food markets aren’t more expensive.

A fundamental mindset change must take place to enter organic eating into your diet. You must realize that you don’t want to die young, you want to be healthy your entire life, and you are committed to enhancing your quality of life. Organic foods are more flavorful and some studies show that organic foods carry significantly higher levels of vitamins and nutrients. Make no mistake, beer is food. The Soil Association Scotland has shown that organic produce contains between 10 and 15 per cent more phenolics (compound that may fight cancer) than non organic. In addition to being grown pesticide and chemical free, organic products also lack the preservatives and additives that many non-organic products have.

I have been a home brewer for many years, and the change to organic, for me, was an easy one. I made the change to brewing organic beer before I started eating organic. Consistently, I found that organic beers tasted much better than non-organic ones, and that the quality of water used to make the beer was also a very important factor. Luckily for me, some friends in a nearby town told me of an organic home brew supply shop where everything was organic! I quickly became friends with the collective members there and, with access to a large variety of organic malt, extract, and hops, I was well on my way towards organic brewing. The Seven Bridges Cooperative brew store has a healthy mail order business, and you can check them out and place orders for organic brewing ingredients online at www.breworganic.com.

We are lucky that we live in this golden age of micro brews, where local and even organic beer is available across the nation. Microbrew organic beer can be found at Whole Foods, Wild Oats, and, of course you local health food co-op or small business. As always, drink it in good health.

A New Kind of Ale: Third Beer

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Third beer is an intriguing and new kind of beer being brewed in Japan today. Third Beer is a category of beer, which uses vagarious malt substitutes such as vegetable protein as a raw ingredient in manufacture. These new beers are mostly a product of the Japanese beer tax, which increases dramatically with the amount of malt content in the ingredients. As a result, a whole slew of beers are flooding the market, some with less than 25% malt content. But is this Third beer any good?

The term third beer is a direct reflection of the three malt categories of the Japanese beer tax system. The highest tax category is beer made with 67% or more malt content, as measured by weight of the fermentable ingredients (that would be first beer). Beers with the next level of malt content are considered low malt beers: 50 to 67%, 25 to 50%, and less than 25% – all of these are considered happoshu, or “second beer. Third beer is a beer-like beverage that contains no malt content at all.

Third beers are the result of the biggest beer companies in Japan trying to find loopholes in the beer tax laws. Sapporo, the leader in third beer innovations, spent nearly 4 years experimenting with different malt substitutes. After attaining unsatisfactory results from millet and corn, Sapporo decided on pea protein for its beverage Draft One, which appeared on the market in 2004. Part of the marketing strategy of the third beer seems similar to Smirnoff Ice. The goal is to appeal to adults that have been raised on sweet tasting sodas, and to whom the bitterness of beer is unwanted.

Instead of malt, Sapporo’s Draft One contains sugar and pea protein, in addition to yeast and hops. Advertisements boast that this beer has less carbs and more fiber. Third beer is also becoming a venue for “healthier beer” as an advertising slogan. After Draft One’s initial success in 2004, Sapporo immediately began to put forth other varieties of third beer such as their “Slims” brand. Other beer companies in Japan have jumped on the third beer bandwagon, putting out their own varieties on the theme.

Ki-rin launched their Third Beer product in 2005, Nodogoshi Nama. Their variety is made with soybean protein, and has also been financially successful, with pre-orders topping 1.6 million cases. Part of the success of the Ki-rin Brewery’s product is the “browning” technique employed to give their third beer the characteristic golden brown hue of actual beer.

Asahi is another Japanese beer company that has entered the Third Beer market. Already going strong in the Happoshu, or second beer market, Asahi’s version of Third Beer, Shin Nama, is based on a malt substitution of soy peptide.

So far, the third beer market in Japan has found little in the way of improvements that actually make any of this third beer taste better than regular beer, at least to the palate of most beer fans. The goal has been predominantly a financial one on the part of the beer companies. Never the less, bold innovations in the field of brewing have been the direct result of these financial and industrial tax evasions. Who would have ever thought that beer would some day be made of soy or pea protein? Third beer is not available for export, but, if you go to Japan, you can get it from a vending machine.

Stay Healthy By Drinking Beer

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Stay Healthy By Drinking Beer

Beer has a history of being prescribed as a tonic remedy for illness. Since the days of Ancient Egyptian civilization, beer has been a healthier alternative than drinking from possibly polluted water supplies. The beer we drink has come a long way from back then. Beer is now available with such fortitude that many beers are considered a meal in and of themselves. We are seeing a trend in beer marketing that labels beer as a “healthy” drink. One modern day beer manufacturer is even fortifying their ale with the vitamins to promote their “health” beer. Others are determined to produce only organic beers. There is some scientific support for this claim, but does the evidence justify all the hubub? I propose that the real keys to gaining the health benefits of drinking beer are simple: quality, and, most importantly, moderation.

Beer has been used medicinally throughout its history. Who hasn’t heard of the Irish tradition of giving an anxious child a sip of porter to help them sleep? In his book Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers, author Stephen Harrod Buhner has published numerous recipes for which our ancestors have used certain herbal beer to treat specific illnesses, from Horehound (for coughs) and Wormwood ale (for fevers) to even Borage ale and beer made with the fresh sprigs of the spruce tree. The use of beer medicinally has largely fallen off in the modern age. Scientific studies regarding such arcane recipes are not likely to come forth, but I put some stock in the technology of a time when people were closer to plants and the earth. Still, one must “use all the tools in the tool box”. So what does modern science say about drinking?

Specifically, when do we draw the line, in terms of health, when drinking beer? Certainly, beer is not healthy for everyone. Those people suffering from Hepatitis-C and other conditions that debilitate the liver, drinking alcohol of any sort is strictly unadvisable. According to the Wall Street Journal (Healthy Brew: Studies Show Beer May Be Good for You August 13, 2002) binge drinking (drinking 6 or more beers a day) can put people at risk for obesity, cancer, liver failure and stroke. But for those that drink less than that, the risk of stroke and heart disease is lessened. From the American Heart Association comes the following recommendation of moderation: according to their Dietary Guidelines, the definition of moderation is two drinks a day for men and one for non-pregnant women (a drink being defined as 12 ounces of regular beer) From this we can gather that having an average of 1-2 pints of quality beer a day might be good level of moderate drinking – enough to stimulate health in the heart without going overboard.

Some commercially produced beers in this day and age are even produced with health benefits in mind. One new brand of “healthy beer” comes from a company know as Stampede. This company’s innovation is vitamin fortified beer. With such vitamin fortifiers as Thiamine, Riboflavin, Niacin, Pyridoxine, Folic Acid, it will be interesting to see if beer drinkers are going to go for the so-called “healthy” alternative. Blu Creek’s “Zen IPA” is another product advertised with the “healthy beer” campaign. Their IPA is brewed with green tea, which contributes anti-oxidants to the brew.

Organic beers are probably your best bet for attaining real and lasting health benefits form your beer. Organic beer is made, every step of the way, with ingredients that are grown without the use of pesticides, additives, or preservatives. The result has people talking. Some friends of mine have claimed that organic beers practically cancel out the possibility of a hangover. I know, from my experience, that the taste of organic beer is superior to non-organics of the same type in many instances. But, are these ales really more beneficial for health? Or is the notion of “healthy beer” merely an advertising ploy? Either way, new and interesting brews are surfacing under the banner of “healthy beer”.

One aspect of beer drinking that contributes to moderation is the knowledge and respect of the craft that comes from home brewing. The hard work and diligence that goes into brewing beer gives the home brewer a deeper understanding of the nature of alcoholic inebriation. If you are interested in the afore-mentioned ancient healing beer recipes, home brewing is certainly the only way to try them out. Although the author of Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers is required to make the disclaimer that the recipes in his book are for “educational and historical” purposes only, I, personally, have had a great deal of enjoyment from re-creating these ancient recipes. Although I must also state that I do not advise the making, use, or ingestion of any of those beers by the reader.

The health benefits of drinking beer do seem to outweigh the negatives, for most people. Just a few beers can tip the scale, however. To stay healthy by drinking beer, remember to moderate your drinking, and have respect for the power of alcohol. Try to drink only good quality beer, organic, if you can get it, and as always, drink it in good health.

Medicinal Tonic Beers

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It may be a surprise to you, but in ages past, beer has been considered to be food, a benefit to health, and even a proper medicine for ailments.  This notion seems at odds with how we see beer today.  To look further into this seeming contradiction, we must look without the scientific and ethnocentric (and entheogencentric*) disdain that many hold toward ancient practices.  To put it bluntly, what we think of today as beer is not what these ancients thought of as beer.

One of the greatest changes in commercial beer production was the German so-called “Beer Purity Law”, or The Reinheitsgebot.  This "purity requirement"(as translated literally), is a law that was first instituted in Bavaria in 1516.  It mandated that the only ingredients to be used in beer were water, hops, and barley.  It has been put forth that this law was intended to preserve wheat and rye prices at a low rate, but had many side effects for regional beers in Germany.  At this time, admixtures such as cherries, nettles, and wormwood were not unheard of, and these beers became outlawed, along with any other possible combination of herbal components.  These components were often added to beers to make them not only more palatable, but also for their medicinal or even entheogenic* qualities.

Another factor to consider, aside from admixtures, is the natural state of a finished beer back then, and now.  By back then, I mean what is called in England Real Ale.  Real Ale is served from a cask, without force carbonation, and without pasteurization.  It is, in essence, a term used to affect the preservation of ancient brewing techniques.  Real Ale is often considered to be heartier than its pasteurized, highly carbonated counterpart, and is even sometimes served warm.  There are many recipes from the 1600s and before which call for warm beer, sometimes with toast and cinnamon on top, supporting the view of beer as food.

In his book Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers, author Stephen Buhner goes into great detail about antique recipes for tonic and medicinal beers.  Many of the recipes are claimed by their authors to be cures for various types of illness, as well as to be tonics (i.e. beers that enhance general health).  In the days before the germ theory became a widely held belief that inured itself in western medical practice, most folks thought of their health a little differently: tonics were sought after as a way to promote health, instead of people being frightened by the potential presence of germs.  This same idea was revealed by Louis Pasteur himself as he lay on his deathbed, as he recanted his Germ theory as harmful to the practice of medicine.

Let us look at how this idea can be applied to beer.  The change that comes with the process of Pasteurization is important.  Before being pasteurized, beer is literally alive.  Living yeast exists in the beer, an organism which has its own defenses against harmful “Germs”.  These defenses are transferred to the beer, supplemented by the anti-bacterial properties of Hops, and protected by the proper kegging of the beer.  All this makes the beer quite a different creature from the Pasteurized, dead ales which are dominant in the U.S. and many other countries.  While the germ theory and the practice of Pasteurization help commercial interests to make money off of beer, in my opinion, these practices likely transform the beer into a less healthy beverage overall. 

These are a few manners in which the essence of beer has changed over the ages.  There still exists today the tradition of brewing real ale (as defined by CAMRA); ale that is more alive, and potentially healthier for you than most commercially produced ales.  For more information on Medicinal Tonic Beers, you can check out the books Sacred and Healing Herbal Beers by Stephen Buhner, and for more information on the U.K.’s CAMpaign for Real Ale see their website at http://www.camra.org.uk/.

*FROM WIKIPEDIA: An entheogen, in the strictest sense, is a psychoactive substance (most often some plant matter with hallucinogenic effects) which occasions a spiritual or mystical experience. In a broader sense, the word "entheogen" refers to artificial as well as natural substances which induce alterations of consciousness similar to those documented for ritual ingestion of traditional shamanic inebriants, even if used in a secular context.