Great article about a subject that isn’t discussed often enough.
http://beergraphs.com/bb/344-high-functioning-craft-beer-and-alcohol/
I thinks it’s a pretty good article from an insiders point of view. I know that I used to be headed down the path to serious alcoholism, a long standing family tradition. But I quit brewing strong beers, now I only open those 750’s of barrel aged imperial stouts when there’s someone to split it with. I use my rule of 16’s: 2 beers at 8%, 3 at 5.5 or a 10% and a 6%(see the pattern?). This lets me enjoy whatever beers I want but at a reasonable level. Since this is my rule and not court imposed, I can ignore it for special occasions, but for the most part it works just fine.
I have a severely alcoholic brother, he’s lived with family members for the past 2 years because he is drunk by breakfast and can’t hold a job, wife, apartment, etc. He had a wreck back in December that killed our mother, but he’s such a professional drunk he was not even tested for sobriety at the crash scene. That allows him to be guiltless, but we all know the truth, there’s no way a sober person could have possibly had that wreck. Anyway, that has also caused me to cut my drinking even more, which sucks because I love brewing so much and the bee is starting to pile up. I do 95% of my drinking at home so drunk driving hasn’t been an issue for me for many years, but still I think of my brother and the joy of beer fades. BTW he drinks Busch Classic 16 oz. cans, hidden like Easter eggs in my Dad’s lower yard.
Nice read Denny. I too have been in a progression from big to session. Still live an 11% barleywine now and then, but when having a beer with dinner, I prefer sub 5%.
I loved the line regarding bar owners. They are as special as the left handed and uncircumcised. Hilarious.
ISO FW Pivo Pils!
Interesting. As a prolific homebrewer I don’t encounter this problem very often, as I can brew what I like, which is pilsner, kolsch, ordinary bitter, BPA, etc. But it is annoying on those rare times I go out to a craft beer bar. “Hey that sounds interesting…ah, crap, 12%…no thanks”
after doing this a few hundred times I realize I like brewing a lot more than I like alcohol. shrug
good article, and I’m glad he brought it up.
A good read. I do brew a lot of high gravity beers and enjoy high gravity beers. You just have to know you can’t have a bunch of them. I do love a lot of lower gravity beers as well though. Know thy limits is the name of the game. I drink beer because I like the taste. I actually don’t even want a buzz typically. If alcohol didn’t contribute so much to the flavor I would be all for NA beers. The best NA beer I’ve had to date has been Einbecker Brauherren Alkoholfrei… and it was only so so I thought.
Definitely gives one pause - I, too, have been sessionizing my brews. Amazing how a light pilsner like Munich Helles can taste great in moderation even at 3.9% ABV. But some of the big boys are nice to settle in with on a cold winter night - just enjoy the sipping and don’t let yourself slip into the mindset that “it’s only beer” and have too many! I also went to 10 oz nonic glasses at my house - the beer lasts longer and the guests don’t seem to mind.
I am definitely moving toward session beer the older I get and the more I brew.
When I was young I would drink a lot of Coors light, not because I thought it tasted good but because I wanted to get drunk. Now I want the oppossite. Now that craft beer has become a hobby and lifestyle for me to a certain degree, I find myself drinking just as much but spread over a period of time instead of binge drinking. I may have a couple a night instead of 18 on a Friday night/Saturday morning. It has been a strange balance for me lately. I want to brew as much as possible but don’t want to my consumption rates to go up to match my production.
+1. I drink a small % of what I brew. Not that I don’t have few on occasion, but I give the majority to friends and neighbors to free up space to brew something else because I love doing it. Age definitely taught me my limits ! Really good article.
very good article. thanks for sharing.
I’ve had a set of 6 of those for years and are my primary go to glasses. however, recently, I’ve switched back to 16-20oz glasses since with the 9oz ones I have, I found myself refilling them quite often and without even realizing it, drank more than I’d intended to.
I’ve always found it strange that so many seem to be passionate about Craft Beer yet unwilling to set aside the ridiculous concept of “Alcohol Abuse.” Looks of scorn or shock when I mention how little of my stuff I actually drink
…this is my homebrew. I give away what I can but that’s not always possible. I taste it, tweak it, blend it, learn from it, and even sometimes when it is great I dump it to move on to something else. Deal with it! 
Great article and topic. Thanks for sharing Denny. I really need to start brewing some session brews.
To me, it’s not just about brewing lower alcohol beers. Being pre diabetic, I’m extremely concerned about carbs. so if I brew lower alcohol beers, I may tend to drink more of them than I should. The me, the issue is self control. Can you walk away from a beer? Do you feel you need to have a beer every day? Do you take days off from drinking during the week?
Most of the beers I drink on a daily basis are under 6%. I certainly like high gravity beers, but I just don’t feel like drinking them very regularly.
I also try to ease back on the drinking during the week, though it has gotten harder to do this since I “work in the industry”. After a 12+ hour work day the very first thing you want it a beer, every time. Especially during summer. But I do manage to go a work week “here and there” with very little or no consumption.
good point on the more of less.
I never pour a beer I don’t intend to drink, so i may not follow there. But I’m also not afraid to dump something that I don’t enjoy though either, which is usually more the case of some weirdo Cigar City Cucumber Mango yada yada treated style.
rare that I ever feel I need a beer, but I do admit for me beer is a habit/routine. Like many folks here, I am a big foodie, love to cook, and having pints while I cook is sort of harmonious in a way. funny thing is i often switch to water by the time i actually eat.
I do usually take days off several days a week - nothing set in stone, but mostly i only drink beers on the weekends nowadays, with an occasional Wednesday here or there if I feel like it or a friend stops over. Travelling for work and dinners out for work often change that however - the former if I go to a place with beers I can’t get here or the latter because of social custom.
Good points. I think about those questions often. I often times will not drink during the weekdays and then have a few on the weekend. I think maintaining a sense of self control is important. I also think of asking yourself “why am I drinking a beer?” is important. I think for me, session beers may have a benefit in that when I do decide to have a beer on Saturday night, I might have some options under 6-7% which is not the case with my current pipeline. Again, great article.
Paul, what I meant was “decide to not drink a beer”. Sounds like you do that.
Everything in moderation. Sounds simplistic but it works for me.
It really is about self control. But I think the more important issue is drinking responsibly. Know when not to drink that 3rd or 4th beer. I do almost all of my drinking at home, so I don’t make any rules about it and I rarely go a day with out a beer or 2. I don’t think beer every day has to be a bad thing. What about coffee? What about food? Are you eating lots of sugar? Fried food? Bread?
Just because someone says you shouldn’t, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t. There’s lots of stuff that’s bad for us, and everything will kill us. I think as long as you’re not getting f*cked up on a regular basis, exercising, and not overeating every meal, you’re probably okay to have 2 or 3 beers a day.
There is an attitude in America in particular that if you drink everyday you are flirting with alcoholism. I’ve been involved with enough alcoholics to know that you can be an alcoholic and not drink every day and you can absolutely drink every day and not be an alcoholic. Heck, I’ve known alcoholics that don’t drink at all and I STILL wouldn’t trust them further than I could throw them for all the same reasons I won’t trust a drinking alcoholic.
setting “I take a day (or couple days, or weekdays) off” as the metric of whether you have a drinking problem can be a problem in and of itself. If you then have a bunch on weekend days you may well be doing more damage to your body than had you had the same amount of beer spread over the whole week.
You may also be allowing yourself to ignore a potentially serious, life altering, problem with alcohol go untreated because “Hey, I take a couple days off every week!”
If you only drink on the weekends but it is destroying your liver and making your spouse want to run far far away you have a drinking problem.
If you drink a beer with dinner every night without fail, unless there just simply isn’t one available. but your family and loved ones can count on you, you are not destroying any part of your body faster than it is capable of renewing itself, and your life is not negatively affected by your nightly beer than it’s hard for me to point at you and say “That is someone with a drinking problem”.
The message I took away from the article was that, particularly if you are “in the industry” and/or you are a “connoisseur” you should be extra aware of how your drinking habits are affecting your life.
Given the increasingly well documented health benefits of moderate regular alcohol consumption it becomes even grayer. Am I drinking every day because it’s good for my heart? Should I worry I have a drinking problem? or am I just relaxing after a hard 12 hour day with a mild natural muscle relaxant that i made myself? (RDWHAHB).
I appreciate his message as I see it and I can only imagine how hard it is when you are “in the industry” to monitor your behavior around alcohol and still meet all the real and perceived social demands that so often revolve around alcohol in that sector of society. Much like working in the bar/restaurant industry or even the entertainment industry.
Of course, if you are trying to reduce your total caloric intake, or your carb intake the beer is almost certainly the second best thing to remove from your diet, right after processed sugars (Candy, Cake, Soda, and Juice type stuff)
This is all my opinion and is not informed by any sort of medical or psychological training and should be taken with appropriate weight.