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Alcohol Hydration Value of Beer

blight12

Bluelighter
Joined
Jan 28, 2012
Messages
1,628
I have always wondered what the hydration value of a beer is. Is it in the positives or the negatives. We all know alcohol dehydrates you however with a standard beer, does the qty of alcohol in it cause more dehydration then the hydration that the volume of water in the beer provides?
 
It depends largely on alcohol content and whether or not you actually need the fluid. Ordinarily alcohol acts as a diuretic (increases urine output), however studies have shown that beer up to 4% alcohol is no different than non-alcoholic beer in people who need hydration, and 2% or less beer is essentially the same as any other drink.

http://alcalc.oxfordjournals.org/content/45/4/366.full
 
Ahh very interesting. So a beer if you need hydration can help, but if you dont need it, it could dehydrate you? I do find when in need of hydration like on meth binge, i can drink a ton of beer and it works, the liquid mostly gets absorbed and the usual volume of urination doesnt occur like it normally would when properly hydrated. I had hoped this would be ok as in this circumstance i often need the anti anxiety effect of alcohol but also hydration, so assumed beer would be an acceptable trade off.
 
I actually found this info a few months ago, and it might have even been an old thread on here...

From memory, it said that beer continues to hydrate you somewhat until you reach a certain ABV that was in the 7.?? range, where it loses all it's hydration value...but it didn't mention anything about it depending on how much water your body needs, but that's fairly obvious I suppose...

So, I wonder if you drank 5% beer all day everyday instead of water, if you'd stay hydrated enough to survive, but still not quite at the level you should be...

From experience, I drink mostly stouts, IPAs and other strong ales, and after consuming 8-10 in the course of a night, I feel the need to drink water throughout, and definitely at the end of the night...
 
I just stick to straight vodka with a few glasses of water. My theory is alcohol is a diuretic so rather then drinking more liquid cut with alcohol drink the alcohol straight and chase it with water. I feel this helps because 1 shot of vodka will make you piss less then 1 beer due to volume and it is easier to replace the lost hydration with actual water.

Once vodka is gone either drink water till bed or literally chug 2 water bottles with a multivitamin before bed. Vitamins replace what is lost due to urination and depleted due to alcohol.

I just find the additional water weight of beer to be unnecessary and prolong the time to get drunk. They use to drink very mild beer over water before people realized boiling the beer was making it safer then water, so it is possible to stay hydrated on low content beer.
 
Its true, hard alcohol or spirits like shots do definitely have better results, its like getting a rush with smoking meth as apposed to snorting it. My usual problem with beer is that the volume of liquid is to much to allow a proper level of intoxication, it falls short due to how fast you can comfortably drink it. A beer with an alc level of say 15% would be ideal.

On stims however beer is perfect, enough to take the edge off, keep you hydrated but not enough to reduce the high. If im just drinking though, beer tends to annoy me in terms of its effects, however spirits is to much, greatly increases the negative side effects and bad anxiety hangovers. Somewhere in between is what i need. Like wine maybe.
 
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