“Beer Scientists” concluded that their study “does not support the common belief of a site-specific effect of beer on the abdomen, the beer belly.”
“Beer consumption seems to be rather associated with an increase in overall body fatness,” they wrote in the European Journal of Clinical Nutrition.
These celebrated scientists – from the German Institute of Human Nutrition Potsdam-Rehbrücke, Fulda University of Applied Sciences and the University of Gothenburg, Sweden – concluded that beer consumption did lead to a rise in waist size, but that this was closely related to overall weight gain in both men and women.
So yet another reason why there is no need for beer-like substances known in magical marketing circles as “light.”
A study in the Czech Republic, published in 2003 in the same medical journal, went as far as to say that drinking beer by itself does not cause much change in weight. In anticipation of American college students discovering this study on the Facebook page of a “friend,” marketers are quickly developing new ways to convince young and/or clueless potential customers to buy their yellow-tinged consumable.
Since beer also does not create stupidity and imbibing large quantities does enhance existent lack of judgment, MillerCoors has invented the factory-installed “puke button” on their cans of “beer.” Euphemistically called a “punch hole,” MillerCoors wants us to believe it’s to facilitate the smooth pouring of the beverage. They reportedly did some “research” and found MillerCoors drinkers don’t like, “Glug.” Not “Glug” as in the classic mulled wine, but rather the “glug…glug…glug” sound from pouring a beer too fast from a can. Really? This is the biggest problem MillerCoors has found their beers? The sound???!!! The SOUND???!!!
Having mis-spent much of my youth on the campus at the University of Missouri, aka Mizzou, aka Budweiser U., my five years of research shows that you don’t have to graduate from college to know how to “shotgun” a beer. In fact, most of those who dropped out were experts at poking a hole in the can, putting your mouth over the hole, then popping the tab, shooting the freezing cold alcohol-laced water down the hatch, only to return from whence it entered a few more shotgunned beers later. Of course, MillerCoors is feigning ignorance of this collegiate cultural phenomenon, focusing on the “glug” factor. As a beer guy who promotes the idea that you should “drink quality, not quantity,” may I politely suggest MillerCoors might want to consider emblazoning their cans with the slogan, “Shotgun Responsibly” – the faster you shoot the freezing cold stuff down your throat, the less you have to actually taste it.
Please. Vomit responsibly.
Today’s column was inspired by a Perc E Bust Coffee Porter which the Full Pint Brewers in Squirrel Hill, PA brew with exotic-sounding Percolated Guatemalan Coffee, well-balanced with the aroma of smokey malt and a hint of hoppy squirrel.
