Homebrew hangovers worse than with BMC?

What are your thoughts on hangovers (headaches) caused by homebrew vs. typical American beer like Bud/Miller/Coors?

Which is worse and and why?

I can only seem to drink a couple of bottles of my SNPA clone on steroids at a time (but gawd is it good at the time).

I guess that is why we have whats called session beers?

I'm just the opposite. I can drink my homebrew all night and the worse thing that happens is I have a bad case of the beerfarts the next day. If I'm out and drink any BMCs on tap, that's when I get a headache

I find that my hangovers are much less with HB than with megaswill. After the initial dryness is solved with fluid (most often another HB to set me straight) I'm usually good to go. I find I don't get the '12" spike going through my brain' headache like I do with commercial beers. Hooray for vitamin B!

Homebrew has less. It's the yeast. Both for the beer fahts and the lack of a nasty hangover.

All those vitamins!

I've never gotten a headache from my home brew but honestly I've never gotten drunk from it. Well I did once a long time ago at a retirement party but I had plenty of BMC after my home brew was gone. Even then I didn't get a headache.

I've been drunk plenty on my homebrew. Not sloppy fallen down drunk, but several levels past "mellow", but I've never had a hangover from it.

If you use CO2 it's the gas.

Did you use honey? It's the impurities you did not skim off the top.

Homebrew is more of a food than MBC. The carbs make HB more filling, more satisfying and the alcohol is absorbed more slowly. More flavor means you drink it slowly (relatively speaking). Even at Hop Madness where I drank HB all day and didn't eat at all, I didn't get a hangover. The B vitamins help.

I have on two occasions gotten sick on HB, but it took sampling all day on a double batch day each time. Felt ok in the morning.

homebrewer_99 said:

If you use CO2 it's the gas.

Did you use honey? It's the impurities you did not skim off the top.

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Nope, didn't use any honey in the batch. I did use close to a cup of corn sugar for carbonating. Even an hour after I walked away from half a glass last night, I came back and it still had a head on it! Maybe my headache came because I poured 12 oz glasses of real SNPA and of my 7+% abv clone at the same time, and drank them both down in about ten minutes. Then I had some more of the clone... lol

I've never had a hangover from HB, but it's because I've never gotten drunk off of it alone. One night though I had three Humble Pie Imperial Stouts (7.5% ABV) and two Seamus's (3.5% ABV) before breaking into my Sierra Bigfoot Ale, of which I had three. I didn't have a hangover the next morning.

Also, if I have enough B/M/C to get me drunk, I will have a hangover, no question about it.

How do you define "drunk?"

I've never gotten a hangover from my homebrew. I've gotten a bit relaxed on occasion from drinking it, though. For example on brewing days I've found that it seems to take at least 4 bottles to get the beer into the primary and the yeast pitched.

I don't know if it was just because it was green or if it was just the sheer volume I drank, but I got pretty loaded on my first batch and it gave me a gnarly hangover.

Hi, I'm a new user but I have been brewing beer for 3 years. I would have to say I and afew of my friends are irresposible drinkers. I got into homebrewing to save myself money. I get worse hangovers off my homebrew than off commercial. If I drink too much homebrew (2-3 litres) I will wake up with a terrible headache, dry deydrated feeling that water doesn't seem to cure, have the runs through the second half of the day. I can drink alot more commercial and wakeup with 1/2 the hangover. I've noticed the lighter colour beers gives less hangover, but the stout gives the worse.

I brew quite differently from most here. I use can extract and use table sugar for fermentation and priming, fill the carboy way past the 5 gallon mark and add extra sugar to make up for the extra water. I don't bother using a secondary fermenter. I usually use 1.25l-2l pet bottles as it's much easier and quicker than using smaller glass bottles (I have a capper and tons of longneck bottles in the shed, but the time saved filling 2l bottles and just screwing on the cap saves me tons of time and less bottles to clean than 800ml bottles). My beer tastes good to me, but I would still rather drink commercial (favourite is VB) as I can get more alcohol effects from the commercial with less hangover, but I brew to save money so 4 out 5 beers I drink are my own.

After many BMC's I switch to Jack&Cokes so I always have a hangover afterwards. Homebrew - the hangover is not as bad but God the beerfarts se terrible.

rowland said:

Hi, I'm a new user but I have been brewing beer for 3 years. I would have to say I and afew of my friends are irresposible drinkers. I got into homebrewing to save myself money. I get worse hangovers off my homebrew than off commercial. If I drink too much homebrew (2-3 litres) I will wake up with a terrible headache, dry deydrated feeling that water doesn't seem to cure, have the runs through the second half of the day. I can drink alot more commercial and wakeup with 1/2 the hangover. I've noticed the lighter colour beers gives less hangover, but the stout gives the worse.

I brew quite differently from most here. I use can extract and use table sugar for fermentation and priming, fill the carboy way past the 5 gallon mark and add extra sugar to make up for the extra water. I don't bother using a secondary fermenter. I usually use 1.25l-2l pet bottles as it's much easier and quicker than using smaller glass bottles (I have a capper and tons of longneck bottles in the shed, but the time saved filling 2l bottles and just screwing on the cap saves me tons of time and less bottles to clean than 800ml bottles). My beer tastes good to me, but I would still rather drink commercial (favourite is VB) as I can get more alcohol effects from the commercial with less hangover, but I brew to save money so 4 out 5 beers I drink are my own.

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A few comments/questions:

(1) what temp do you ferment your beer at? if it's too high, you are going to create fusel alcohols (longer chains), and these will lead to hangovers.

(2) I'm betting that your homebrew is much higher in alcohol than commercial beer.

(3) the runs are caused by the yeast in the homebrew. yeast is a natural laxative.

(4) if you are drinking 3L of homebrew, that's about 9 (12oz) bottles of beer. Add in the fact that HB is probably higher in alcohol than commercial, and you're getting up toward consuming the same amount of alcohol that would be found in a half case of commercial beer. Why you have a hangover? Because that's a lot of alcohol!

(5) if your HB is higher in alcohol than commercial, then you are literally consuming a higher water-to-alcohol ratio when you drink commercial. This would lessening the effects of the hangover.

(6) the comment about light-colored beers vs dark-colored beers causing different hangover intensities is weird. The color shouldn't make any difference at all, unless you are allergic to roasted barley or something. It is possible that your light-colored beers are also lower in alcohol content than the dark beers? That's the only thing that makes sense to me.

-walker

rowland said:

Hi, I'm a new user but I have been brewing beer for 3 years. I would have to say I and afew of my friends are irresposible drinkers. I got into homebrewing to save myself money. I get worse hangovers off my homebrew than off commercial. If I drink too much homebrew (2-3 litres) I will wake up with a terrible headache, dry deydrated feeling that water doesn't seem to cure, have the runs through the second half of the day. I can drink alot more commercial and wakeup with 1/2 the hangover. I've noticed the lighter colour beers gives less hangover, but the stout gives the worse.

I brew quite differently from most here. I use can extract and use table sugar for fermentation and priming, fill the carboy way past the 5 gallon mark and add extra sugar to make up for the extra water. I don't bother using a secondary fermenter. I usually use 1.25l-2l pet bottles as it's much easier and quicker than using smaller glass bottles (I have a capper and tons of longneck bottles in the shed, but the time saved filling 2l bottles and just screwing on the cap saves me tons of time and less bottles to clean than 800ml bottles). My beer tastes good to me, but I would still rather drink commercial (favourite is VB) as I can get more alcohol effects from the commercial with less hangover, but I brew to save money so 4 out 5 beers I drink are my own.

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Ummm . . . that seems hard core . . .

I guess that I brew for the opposite reason. When I drink BMC, I usually tend to overdo it. When I drink my own brews, I tend to slow down and savor their complex flavors. I can't remember a time when I've been drunk on homebrews . . . but this may mean I am too stingy with my supply.

HB is much gentler on me then other intoxicating beverages. I have heard it is the lack of chemicals in the HB. MBC is allowed some god awful amount of chemical additives in their brews. Also, beer in general has a bunch of crap in it, fermentation by-products like methane and acetone. When you distill beer you pull all that stuff out to get your pure spirits. That is why they say vodka is among the best drinks for you, alcohol speaking, it is just purer. Dehydration is another problem, beer is a diaheretic and you loss more water then you put in. So the old notion of pounding a big glass of water before bed is a real head saver.

I only tend to get "worse" hangovers when drinking my higher alcohol brews.

Interesting topic and a subject I've been wanting to post but more towards hop IBU and hangovers. I am a hop-head but also think I've come to the conclusion that hoppier beers make me feel less chipper than say wheats, porters etc. If I drink 3+ (ok, 4+) pints of IPA, mine or local brewpub's I definitely feel worse than if I did the same with my porter. Roughly the same ABV.

Similar but not as extreme as when I drink 2-3 glasses of red wine. An allergy to hops could very well be the most disastrous allergy known to mankind; I'd rather get bird flu!!!

I've wet my bed after drinking alot of water after boozing up. Nothing worse than than waking up at 4am wondering what that warm wet feeling is, but I've found it's usually pure water (ie no wee smell) that comes out of you assuming you didn't eat anything before sleep.

(1) what temp do you ferment your beer at? if it's too high, you are going to create fusel alcohols (longer chains), and these will lead to hangovers.

lowest is usually 20c upto 26c, within that range.

(2) I'm betting that your homebrew is much higher in alcohol than commercial beer.

Not much more, I will get just as drunk off a commerical sixpack as a HB sixpack. I think commercial beer has more unfermentable sugars so that keeps up the bodies strength to process the alcohol, my hb is very thin and never keeps a head on it and has little unfermented sugars left as I use more water per extract can than recommended but with more sugar. I get 1 extra gallon of beer for the little cost of extra sugar which I thnk is very good. I also do not eat when I drink. I read that drinking strong cordial before bed will help starve off a hangover, as the body uses the sugar to help the body to breakdown the alcohol while your asleep.

(3) the runs are caused by the yeast in the homebrew. yeast is a natural laxative.

Yeah I don't know about that, I try not to drink yeast, but I get the runs if I drink alot of commercial beer too, just more so than HB

(4) if you are drinking 3L of homebrew, that's about 9 (12oz) bottles of beer. Add in the fact that HB is probably higher in alcohol than commercial, and you're getting up toward consuming the same amount of alcohol that would be found in a half case of commercial beer. Why you have a hangover? Because that's a lot of alcohol!

Maybe, I add 2kg of sugar to 6gallons of water + extract but I still get just as drunk if I drink equal volume of commercial vs homebrew, just that I wakeup feeling much worse off my homebrew.

(5) if your HB is higher in alcohol than commercial, then you are literally consuming a higher water-to-alcohol ratio when you drink commercial. This would lessening the effects of the hangover.

No the opposite is true, i believe it's not so much the alcohol giving me the hangovers, but other stuff that is naturally formed in the beer. I could drink a bottle of vodka and wakeup without a hangover. I think why many here don't wakeup with hangovers is because they generally drink only 1-2 bottles at a time.

(6) the comment about light-colored beers vs dark-colored beers causing different hangover intensities is weird. The color shouldn't make any difference at all, unless you are allergic to roasted barley or something. It is possible that your light-colored beers are also lower in alcohol content than the dark beers? That's the only thing that makes sense to me.

Oh no, stout I find gives me terrible hangovers, and I've tried HB and nearly all the commercial stout. I love stout, but there is something in it that gives me worse hangovers than regular beer.

Thanks Imperial Walker.

rowland said:

Imperial Walker said:

(1) what temp do you ferment your beer at? if it's too high, you are going to create fusel alcohols (longer chains), and these will lead to hangovers.

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lowest is usually 20c upto 26c, within that range.

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26°C would be pretty warm for ale yeast (that's about 79°F, a good 7°F above the "comfortable" range). I would imagine that you might be producing fusel alcohols at that temp.

rowland said:

Imperial Walker said:

(3) the runs are caused by the yeast in the homebrew. yeast is a natural laxative.

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Yeah I don't know about that, I try not to drink yeast, but I get the runs if I drink alot of commercial beer too, just more so than HB

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If you are drinking homebrew, you are drinking LOTS of yeast, even if you are careful and avoid the sediment in the bottles. There are millions and millions of yeast floating around in beer unless it is filtered out.

Try keeping your temps lower when you ferment next time. It might make a HUGE difference in the hangover area.

-walker

Is it possible after the beer conditions in the bottle to heat it up to kill the yeast as I feel this is one reason why I get hangovers, live yeast robbing my body of vitamines. Once the yeast is deactivated, I should then get the benifits of the yeasts vitamines.

You should never eat raw active yeast, since it will continue to grow in your intestine and rob your body of valuable nutrients. But once deactivated through pasteurization, yeast is a good source of nutrients.

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http://www.foodsubs.com/LeavenYeast.html

rowland said:

Is it possible after the beer conditions in the bottle to heat it up to kill the yeast as I feel this is one reason why I get hangovers, live yeast robbing my body of vitamines. Once the yeast is deactivated, I should then get the benifits of the yeasts vitamines.



http://www.foodsubs.com/LeavenYeast.html

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I honestly don't think it's the yeast robbing your body of nutrients that is causing your hangovers, but you could probably heat it up to kill the yeast. I would be scared of my bottles exploding due to the fact that heating it up will cause the pressure in the bottles to increase.

Hmmm... thinking about nutrients...

You said you use one can of malt extract (which has nutrients in it) and a LOT of table sugar (which has no nutrients) to make your beer.

By using such a small amount of malt extract, you are robbing YOURSELF of more nutrients than the yeast might be taking from you. This might be part of the reason your homebrews give you more severe hangovers.... there's alcohol and water in them with just a TOUCH of barley nutrition.

I really don't know what to tell you. The main problem might just be that you drink too much.

-walker

If I drink even a half a glass of Budweiser I get a terrible hang over the next morning, no exageration. But I can drink Coors and Yuengling till the cows come home with no problems. I have such a problem with Budweiser that if its that or nothing I chose nothing.
Havent had much homebrew since I am new at this.

kevy_kev said:

If I drink even a half a glass of Budweiser I get a terrible hang over the next morning, no exageration. But I can drink Coors and Yuengling till the cows come home with no problems. Havent had much homebrew since I am new at this.

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I have the same problem with Bud.

i think i broke myself in college years ago... hangovers never really bothered me much, but i smoked enough refer along with the booze i swilled to not realy know which way was up or down for about four years.

i only really get a hangover if i black out nowadays. and i've only blacked out off my homebrew once or maybe twice, tis hard to recall, since i started brewing.

usually i catch myself before i get too drunk too quickly with the homebrew and start drinking water nowadays. good hydration before crashing and six or so hours of sleep= little/no hangover for me.

but the bmc hangovers are worse imho.

This thread makes me laugh!!!!

Yeah . . . . , I know . . .

I never actually addressed LL's original question, but I meant to.

I don't get hangovers from my HB, but this is largely due to moderation. I am not ALWAYS a moderate drinker... I can get seriously tore up on occasion.

However, I always feel like I am wasting my quality homebrew by getting schnockered on it. I start to lose my appreciation for taste after drinking several, and would be just as happy sucking down a pabst as I would my IPA.

I wouldn't buy a bottle of awrd-winning wine and get drunk with it either. Same sort of thing in my mind.

If I am going to get hammered, I'll drink commercial or break out the tequila or vodka. I generally pay for the irresponsibility the next day (except the vodka, which I drink mixed with grapefuit juice... keeps me hydrated and loaded with Vitamin C.)

-walker

rowland said:

Is it possible after the beer conditions in the bottle to heat it up to kill the yeast as I feel this is one reason why I get hangovers, live yeast robbing my body of vitamines. Once the yeast is deactivated, I should then get the benifits of the yeasts vitamines.

Yeast is a one-celled fungus that converts sugar and starch into carbon dioxide bubbles and alcohol..........You should never eat raw active yeast, since it will continue to grow in your intestine and rob your body of valuable nutrients. But once deactivated through pasteurization, yeast is a good source of nutrients. Brewer's yeast and nutritional yeast, for example, are sold as nutritional supplements, and Australians are fond of yeast extracts--like Vegemite, Marmite, and Promite--which they spread like peanut butter on bread.

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http://www.foodsubs.com/LeavenYeast.html

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I have a real hard time believing that and would like to see the source they got that information from. One would think that the acidity of the digestive system would kill the yeast. I highly doubt it would thrive in your guts. There is not really any food for the yeast to eat to live. I would have to do more research on that topic before I believed it. But I have been wrong many times before in the past.

I do not really get hangovers from homebrew. I think it's mostly because of the b vitamins in the yeast, and I make sure I drink 1 or 2 glasses of water before bed. If I am out drinking mixers I will take a couple of brewers yeast tablets before bed as well.

Some people may get a worse hangover from Bud because of the rice used. If you are drinking Bud Light I think they use 60% rice to 40% barley and if your drinking Budweiser you just flip the ratio.

barleypopmaker said:

I have a real hard time believing that and would like to see the source they got that information from.

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The source is the author of that site...she made it up.

rowland said:

......... I and afew of my friends are irresposible drinkers. I..... If I drink too much homebrew (2-3 litres) ............
....but I would still rather drink commercial (favourite is VB) as I can get more alcohol effects from the commercial with less hangover....

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Wow! I must be really Hardcore I can easily put away 6 22oz bottles of homebrew on a Saturday over 10+ hours.. I would like to think I am a responsible alcoholic I generally will catch a buzz fridays.. and will usually crawl into bed Saturdays depending on what I'm doing and with who. I never drink any other day of the week, save an occasional holiday when no work the next day. I get nasty farts and "soft" log production the next day but never had a hangover from homebrew even after being "staggering drunk".. I have however learned after years of controlled Alcoholism that a 12oz glass of water (minimum) between each 2 beers and a big glass before bed is a hangover preventative method that has served me well for years.. If I over do commercial beers sometimes I'll feel run down but no headache, Homebrew never had any issue.

And send me some VB! Been a while since I been able to get some (last time was in Diego Garcia in 2002 some Aussie Air Force guys flew us in a few cases on a parts run)

P.S. I'm a responsible Drunk since I never drive or operate anything mechanical that could hurt someone, when drinking, nor do I let my drinking buddies drive if they are at my house getting lit on my beer.

barleypopmaker said:

I have a real hard time believing that and would like to see the source they got that information from. One would think that the acidity of the digestive system would kill the yeast. I highly doubt it would thrive in your guts. There is not really any food for the yeast to eat to live. I would have to do more research on that topic before I believed it. But I have been wrong many times before in the past.

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The other thing to consider- If yeast were living in your gut can you imagine the gas it would produce???

beer is not the only source of yeast...fresh fruit is covered with millions and millions and millions of wild yeast cells, ive never heard of getting a hangover from eating grapes. (a single grape can have as many as 10 million yeast cells on it)

ive personnally eaten a buttload of grapes in one sitting, without getting hungover. (the sh*ts maybe, hungover no)

Okay . . . I can't take it anymore; I'm calling post foul on this thread! Didn't this rowland recently start this thread in which he wanted to use yeast from his brews in recipes with ground meat for health reasons . . . and now he is claiming that his yeast gives him hangovers.

I'm calling . . . troll

That was my first post in this thread, I introduced myself, said that I'm a new user and said what gives me a hangover. I said "live" yeast I believe I have a problem with, dead yeast I don't. (would you eat a live animal?, I prefer them dead and cooked, same with yeast, I believe the live yeast in beer is somewhat unhealthy). sonvolt I don't have any will to get into any flame wars, hope you understand.

rowland said:

That was my first post in this thread, I introduced myself, said that I'm a new user and said what gives me a hangover. I said "live" yeast I believe I have a problem with, dead yeast I don't. (would you eat a live animal?, I prefer them dead and cooked, same with yeast, I believe the live yeast in beer is somewhat unhealthy). sonvolt I don't have any will to get into any flame wars, hope you understand.

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While it never occured to me that your post might have been a troll, I can understand why some might have taken it that way. First off, from your description of your methods, it seems to me that you're really more interested in making something with a lot of alcohol than you are in making good beer. Then in another post you talk about wetting the bed when you drink to much. Then you post a link to a site that contains a bunch of poppycock about live yeast causing hangovers.

Here's what's causing your hangovers: 1) Brewing with more sugar than malt, and 2) Drinking so much that you wet the bed. I guarantee you that if you brew something to a standard recipe without sugar, and stop drinking before you lose control of bodily functions, then you won't have anymore hangover problems (at least not homebrew related ones).

El Pistolero said:

While it never occured to me that your post might have been a troll, I can understand why some might have taken it that way. First off, from your description of your methods, it seems to me that you're really more interested in making something with a lot of alcohol than you are in making good beer. Then in another post you talk about wetting the bed when you drink to much. Then you post a link to a site that contains a bunch of poppycock about live yeast causing hangovers.

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These are points that I also would make in defense of my (erroneous) judgment of your posts as "fake" posts. Sorry if I'm wrong . . . and I'm not picking a "flame-fight" either.

But seriously . . . you may be the first person I've ever known who homebrews in order to get drunk cheaply. Most of us (IMO) get into homebrewing for the hand-crafted quality of excellent tasting beer. If I was out to drink so much I pi$$ed my bed, I think I'd tear into a couple $2.00 bottles of Mad Dog 20/20 becasue that corn sugar laden beer you're making and bottling in 2 liter pepsi bottles can't taste that good . . . but I'm sure it gets you

As for the hangovers . . . I'm with El P . . . maybe you shouldn't drink so much that you pi$$ the bed.

But hey . . . that's cool, too. Sorry for misinterpreting the purpose of your posts.

I like to get drunk, if the beer has 5% it tastes wonderful to me. Higher alcohol beers where I live cost $3-$6 a longneck and if you drink 20-30 of those aweek it adds up and I also like to help my friends pockets as well. I like to step lightly on the earth and reuse and waste less. I can't imagine if I was constantly drinking store brought booze how much waste I would be creating each week. Using plastic pet bottles I'm not even wasting metal bottle caps. Beer is a food and I'm saving food money drinking beer at night because I'm often not hungry while I'm drinking so 3-4 nights of the week I don't bother cooking dinner. About the bed wetting, It's only happened afew times, and thats when I drink alot of water before bed, not so much drinking too much booze before bed. No worries sonvolt.

El Pistolero, I would use different sugar if it would improve the beer, but when brewers sugar is 3-4 times more expensive than table sugar, I can't bring myself to buy it instead.

rowland said:

I like to step lightly on the earth and reuse and waste less.

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Then quit using all that refined sugar in your beer. Refined sugar may be easier on your pocket book, but it certainly isn't easier on the environment.

rowland said:

El Pistolero, I would use different sugar if it would improve the beer, but when brewers sugar is 3-4 times more expensive than table sugar, I can't bring myself to buy it instead.

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Sorry, but here's where you put your money where your mouth is. Using malt extract instead of sugar will certainly improve your beer...tremendously. It will also cost a few pennies more per bottle. Are you interested in making good beer and "stepping lightly on the earth", or are you interested in getting drunk the cheapest way possible. IMHO, you can't do both.

just buy a gallon of popov.. it gets you to the same end point for half the price if thats all you want.

That is surprosing about the rice ratio in Bud and Bud Lite, is it backwards? I can stomach Bud Lite a little better than Bud

I'm not sure what to say to that. Sugar in my opinion is sugar be it malt, dextrose etc. There really is no reason why one sugar is better over the other in beer brewing except one type isn't as fully fermentable as the other. My understanding is table sugar is fully fermentable, some of the others are not. I'm not interested in drinking candy water, sugar is bad for you, so is alcohol but why drink unfermented sugars when instead that portion could be alcohol? I see your point, beers with higher unfermented sugars taste better, but if you drink to get drunk, you'll just drink more and add to your waist line and drinking more unfermented sugar in my opinion is against most health concious readings. I understand higher alcohol is bad too, but I drink because the beer has alcohol in it, not because the unfermented sugar makes it taste good. I think my beer tastes good anyway, I'm not into competition beers or anything like that, I just enjoy brewing my own beer and drinking it thinking to myself this only cost me abit of copper instead of gold coins.