Homebrew calories.

My gf brought up a good point. She stated that beer usually does have a lot of calories (which is true). Then I said well I'm not sure if homebrew has more or less then regular beer but I have a feeling its definetly less due to less adjunc?? Or does homebrew have more adjunc?

light BMC beer doesn't have very many calories. there are formulas out there that calculate your beer's calories per bottle.

here is a site that will calculate based on a 12oz bottle.

Generally, more malt + more alcohol = more calories. So, homebrew will probably have more calories. A "light" BMC is lower alcohol, and adjunct-ridden which will ferment out more fully.

My homebrew has no calories. At least that's the illusion I plan to uphold!

If you use beersmith it gives you an estimated calories/pint. Its not pretty On most of my beers its about 250. Miller Light is 90something. I'm cutting back consumption during the week solely for the calories.

I run 40 miles a week so I can drink as much b33r as I want.

I would think your average home brew has much more calories than your regularly consumed commercial beers.....

I gave up eating so I can enjoy the fruits of my labor more fully. As mentioned above, Beersmith provides estimates and many of my brews are in the 240-260 calories per pint range.

A general rule of thumb is look at the starting gravity. To get a sub 100 calorie beer, your starting gravity needs to be around 1.031 or less. So how many beers have you done that have a starting gravity like that? Yeah, not many but I don't drink beer to watch calories, most of weight gain from beer drinking comes from the snacking that happens at the same time so just on a treadmill while you drink


As a example,

the partigyle brew I did resulted in a 1.106 gravity barleywine that will be about 375 calories per 12oz and a 1.034 small beer that is about 108 calories per 12oz

More calories per serving yes, but do you drink more calories per drinking session? If it takes 4 or 5 100 calorie beers to get you feeling the same as two good home brews, it's all relative. Just work out, you'll feel better and not feel guilty about drinking

Well i run on the olyptical every day and I don't drink every day so I should be fine but I was just curious about that. I kinda figured malt adds alot of calories to beer.

jonbomb said:

Well i run on the olyptical every day and I don't drink every day so I should be fine but I was just curious about that. I kinda figured malt adds alot of calories to beer.

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It isn't malt vs. adjuncts or anything like that. It is sugar in --> sugar and alcohol out. The more sugar you start with, the more calories you're going to end up with. Those beers with 64 calories are something like 2.7% alcohol and very dry. You just have to remember that malt simply = sugar.

johnnyc said:

If you use beersmith it gives you an estimated calories/pint. Its not pretty On most of my beers its about 250. Miller Light is 90something. I'm cutting back consumption during the week solely for the calories.

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Hey note that Beersmith is giving you calories per pint, not per 12oz bottle. Per pint Miller is 128 calories. Still not close, but that's a little better.

I remember doing the math a few years back and I realized that 6 Bud Lights was virtually identical to 5 Budweisers in terms of calories and total alcohol. Decided it was a more effeciant and cost effective buzz to drink Budweiser.

For the health conscious buzz seeker, go for hard liquor, straight up.

For the health conscious buzz seeker, go for hard liquor, straight up.

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An excellent point. Distilled beverages, straight up or on the rocks, get 100% of their Calories (capital C for a reason) from alcohol. Nothing wasted on body and little on flavor.

humann_brewing said:

most of weight gain from beer drinking comes from the snacking that happens at the same time so just on a treadmill while you drink

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it is true the 'beer gut' is more because you eat pizza wings and other junk things when you drink theres no fat in beer so weight gain is minimal at best...besides if you drink enough beer you probably piss out twice as much(or at least i do) so that would lose water weight

you can find plenty calorie calculators online like this one

http://www.steubrew.com/alcohol-content-calculator.html

I've gained 5-10 pounds since I started homebrewing a year ago. Homebrew has MUCH more calorie content. I've recently decided to exercise more and watch my food intake, but I've left my homebrew consumption intact...totally worth it.

My educated guesstimation would not include OG as a factor, rather the FG. Any sugar, fermentable or not will manifest itself as a dissolved sugar and cause an increase in OG. If it is fermented, it will become ethanol obviously and lower the FG and any unfermentable will remain as residual FG. So the higher the FG, the higher the amount of sugar that remains. Ethanol is listed at about 7 calories per gram, compared to 9 for fat and 4 each for carbohydrate and protein. A 355mL beer at app. 1.01 SG and 6% EtOH (meaning about 359 mg per 12 oz, or almost 480 g per pint times 6% w/v alcohol would put us at 28.8g grams of ethanol, or 28.8g*7cal/g = 202 calories per pint just for the alcohol plus the sugar, which would be minimal for a beer with such a low gravity). For a [maltier] beer with more residual sugar, we would have more of a caloric contribution, though not an appreciable amount more.

Can anyone confirm this or make a case against? Please advise.