Yesterday, a report (mentioned here) by the CDC popped up which sparked a fair bit of commentary (Davis on Draft, Brookston Beer Bulletin) which I completely agree with. The main result of the study is that "binge drinkers" opt for beer over other alcoholic beverages. The major criticism of course is that this result is likely a consequence of many factors which have nothing to do with binge drinking, so in some sense, the results state the obvious yet at the same time give beer a bad rap by association.

Today, after reading J's rant on the subject, it struck me that the definition of "binge drinker" that I got from the article about the CDC report is a bit strange. I think this is the same definition that is quoted in J's post and Davis' post. The basic definition is:

A binge drinker was defined as someone who had five or more alcoholic drinks on at least one occasion in the last 30 days.

What struck me as being strange is that this definition does not directly correlate with a blood alcohol concentration (BAC). In fact, using this definition alone would lead to vastly different BACs depending on the circumstances and what is meant by occasion. For example, drinking five beers during the course of a super bowl party that lasts for five hours would result in a dramatically different BAC then drinking five beers while eating a meal at a brewpub.

What then surprised be even more, is that the CDC has a page dedicated to binge drinking. From that resource comes a very different definition:

The National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines binge drinking as a pattern of drinking that brings a person’s blood alcohol concentration (BAC) to 0.08 grams percent or above. This typically happens when men consume more than 4 drinks and women consume more than 3 drinks in about 2 hours (1).

What was interesting to me about this definition, is that it departs dramatically from the five beers or more definiton that we all read in the initial article. Furthermore, it totally changes the interpretation of what binge drinking is. J mentioned in his post that he could drink 7 beers and still be under 0.08. Many people can, and by this new definition, they would not fall under the classification of "binge drinker." This makes intuitive sense. More importantly perhaps is that this definition correlates with the chemical and biological response of the body to alcohol which is an inherent characteristic of each person. Very clever! By this definition, "binge drinking" actually corresponds to drinking enough so as to put your own body into a state of intoxication. Independent of what you drink, how you drink it, and how much of it you drink.

Those comments aside, it is obvious from the second definition above how we came to the erroneous definition given (first above) in the previous articles. A clear example of the writers of the original articles about the CDC report trying to package a more complex definition and loosing the baby with the bath water. At any rate, nothing in what I have said changes that fact that the report is highly misleading. It is a shame because there are a lot of really interesting areas of study surrounding binge drinking. I would argue however that the choice of drink is not one of them.

Bloomberg.com has a short article on recent findings by the CDC which point towards binge drinkers opting for beer over other forms of alcoholic beverages. From the article:

In the nation, about 30 percent of adults who drink alcohol
reported binge drinking in the month before the survey,
researchers said after a study of 14 states. A total of 81.8
percent of such drinkers in North Dakota consumed more beer to
excess than other alcoholic drinks. Those in Maine had 6.6
beers, the largest number of servings. Californians consumed the
most wine, 14.6 percent of total drinks.

 

Apparently, consuming more than 5 drinks on one occasion is considered "binge drinking." Which makes me wonder what consuming 5 bottles of barley wine would be called. Oh wait, I know. It would be called Awesome! That is, as long as they are 350 mL bottles of course.

The Star-Telegram has a short article about the possibility of beer and wine labels in the United States being required to include nutritional and alcohol content information in the future. This is being backed by the Treasury Department who recently came to the conclusion that most consumers do not know what is in the beer that they drink. They have issued a new label requirement to rectify this situation. Apparently, this has been fought over for many years with the Beer Institute providing the bulk of the opposition.

I came across a rather hilarious article at the Detroit Free Press on pairing food with beverages, and clearly by the tone of the article they spent little time thinking about BEvERages. The punchline is the map below which is a guide for food and beverage pairs. Not to say that the guide is bad or anything, but I found the beer suggestions to be quite funny. For example, the suggestions for shrimp are: Amber ale, Pilsner, Porter, Wheat, or Tecate! Somehow Tecate snuck in there as a beer style. Not to mention that those suggestions span a super wide range of tastes and flavors for beer. But wait, then there is the one for pork: Ale or Pilsner. Way to keep it general!

Nothing like a great pairing of food and beer to start the weekend off right. With beers from Dogfish Head and entrees like red snapper slow roasted in banana leaf, it sounds like quite a meal. My favorite part of the dinner was a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with jelly made from a reduction of kriek lambic. Too bad I never got PB&J like that when I was growing up!

link

Have you ever wondered how many calories are in the beer you drink? Well, for many common beers, the answers are known and available online. However for those who drink less common beers, especially strong ales with 8% or more ABV, the answer is a bit harder to find.

I stumbled upon this question while searching on google for online information about beer. I happend upon many sites with detailed information about calorie content in a wide range of beers

Beer Alcohol and Calories (brewery.org)

Newsweek entertainment has a story today that recounts the author's experience with six different vintage beers in a New York restaurant (Gramercy Tavern). The content would be old news for most people who are interested in beer. I could see it being news for those who buy most of their beer at the gas station, but then again, how many of those people will be interested in buying vintage beer in the first place. It seems that others were not impressed with the story content either.

Well, the (Northern Hemisphere) summer is coming to an end. Semester school kids are back in session. In many regions, the temperature is dropping, days are getting shorter, and the memories of the past summer seem increasingly distant. While the honey wheat, Belgian summer, Hefe-(insert your favorite variety here), and light session beers slowly loose favor to the richer, darker, fuller, and generally stronger beers, one can't help but feel a bit of exitement for what lies ahead. Each fall and winter bring the opportunity to try the biggest and boldest fall ales, pumpkin brews, Thanksgiving ales, and last winters barley wine brews. There is something magical about the start of the fall, and the end of summer that touches upon our inner desire to bundle up (well, maybe not in San Diego), sit down, relax, and enjoy a strong ale.

I stumbled across an article (which admitidly is quite old) today on icWales and it made some interesting claims about beer drinking in the UK. The main point of the article, was that UK drinkers are choosing taste over strength when it comes to beer. This of course caught my attention. It only seems natural, that as more selection becomes available, beer drinkers will select better tasting beers. This however does not mean that the beers must be lower in strength. In many cases, this is quite the contrary. The assertion of the article seems to be based on the sales stats for pubs in the UK during 2005. After reading the list of the top selling beers I was quite surprised. The top five from the list were:

Now that it is near the end of June, the summer is in full swing and the heat is on, literally in many places. Given the abundance of sunlight and high temperatures, the question on the tip of everyone's tongue is: What beer best compliments the summer heat? Well, many might respond with the typical foray of light, dry, macrobrewed ales that quench the thirst for water more than for beer. On the other hand, one could argue that there are many fine strong ales that perfectly compliment the summer weather. One especially nice example is the Belgian Tripel.