I'm not complaining mind you but...why no headaches?

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BierMuncher

...My Junk is Ugly...
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I don't ever get headaches from drinking homebrew. It doesn't matter if I have 4-5 glasses of my sweet porter (6.3%) or half a dozen mugs of my German Kolsch.

I just don't get headaches like I do with commercial beer or liquor.

I know there has to be a reason.

Mind you...I'm not saying I drink that much of my own most-awesome creation every night...well...okay...you got me there...

Anyone else have the same good fortune of saying so-long to the hot needle in the back of the neck since homebrewing?
 
The yeast that abounds in our unfiltered beers is full of vitamin B complex. While you drink, the alchohol strips your body of these nutrients. At the same time, the yeast replenish it.

- magno
 
I'll have to check but I read an article some place that indicated a high content of fusel alcohols might be one component of the headache associated with megaswills. If I can locate the article I post what I find.
 
runhard said:
I'll have to check but I read an article some place that indicated a high content of fusel alcohols might be one component of the headache associated with megaswills. If I can locate the article I post what I find.

If you can find that article...awesome.

Living in St. Louis you can imagine the uphill battle trying to convert my AB zomby friends to homecraft brew.

One thing on my side is that they all agree...Bud Light gives them a terrible headache. And yet they continue...

Me...I'll take my bitters brew any day. :cross:
 
I gotta add my thoughts on this one, because I've noticed a tremendous change in my health since I've started drinking Homebrew.

I've gotten sick, multiple times, each winter; from minor head colds to nasty sinus infections. I'm also a public school teacher, which puts me in the middle of the perverbial petrie dish so-to-speak.

I started making/drinking homebrew last spring (May, to be exact) . This winter, I haven't come down with the slightest illness. No joke. Nothing! I drink about 2-3 of my homebrews a day. I take a multi vitamin every morning, and sometimes the extra 1000mg C vitamin when I think I've been around something real naughty.

I have been sick every winter, multiple times, for year and years and years up until I started drinking the homebrew. I'm no scientist, but I think the homebrew had something to do with it!

I had a Forgotten English Word/Myths calendar, and for one of the days, it said something along the lines of:

Pre 1900 "... doctors used to prescribe drinking beer in the Winter months to prevent sickness." This would have been before beer was filtered, etc. Very healthy stuff, much like we're making today!

In my own experience, I am now an advocate of drinking homebrew to prevent illness, boost the immune system, etc. I too have seen the Brewer's Yeast for sale in health food stores, to prevent illness/boost the immune system. There's certainly something to it.

5gB
 
5gBrewer said:
This winter, I haven't come down with the slightest illness. No joke. Nothing! I drink about 2-3 of my homebrews a day. I take a multi vitamin every morning, and sometimes the extra 1000mg C vitamin when I think I've been around something real naughty.

I'm thinking if 2-3 homebrews a day fends off illness...5-6 a day may actually reverse the aging process. Anyone willing to participate in an experiment? Heh...heh...besides me? :mug:
 
KalvinEddie said:
I'm thinking if 2-3 homebrews a day fends off illness...5-6 a day may actually reverse the aging process. Anyone willing to participate in an experiment? Heh...heh...besides me? :mug:

Count me in, Kal :drunk:

5gB
 
thats a good quote 5gB....

my recipe book has random quotes through out it and I like this one:

"A glass of bitter or pale ale, taken with the principal meal of the day, does more good and less harm than any medicine the physician can prescribe."

-Doctor Carpenter, 1750
 
KalvinEddie said:
I'm thinking if 2-3 homebrews a day fends off illness...5-6 a day may actually reverse the aging process. Anyone willing to participate in an experiment? Heh...heh...besides me? :mug:

I am actually 412 years old.
 
You're just not drinking enough. I made a keg for a party and indulged in quality control exercise of having one beer for everyone someone else had - just to be sure that the quality was still good. It was a 20l keg, i mus'tve had 9 litres of it myself. hangover from hell. course it could have been the fact that when the keg was emptied i drank commercial stuff.... yeah that was it... :)
 
If I drink my homebrew I am good to go for ...i am on my 6 pint tonight and still going..........but if I drink a guinness i am out like ...really....15 min i could be sleeping ..just ask me SWMBOB! (spelling ) &*%$*&%
 
I think it has to do with the yeast but think it has to do more with the good quality alcohol. Most of what we make has little to no adjuncts. The alcohol is derived from malts, very little from processed sugars or syrups.

When I drink a HB, where you just casually enjoy one or two, I think the buzz is slightly different in feeling. If I have a BMC it doesn't feel the same. I feel more mellow with the HB. Its hard to describe.

I don't like getting behind the wheel after a couple brews. After two BMC's I feel as if I'm risking driving by having a third. After two HB's I might have as much alcohol but I don't feel as much at risk about driving. That doesn't mean I should drive if I drink home brew, but I know I feel different. I don't know how else to describe it any other way.

Maybe the adjuncts put more fusel alcohols. Less brain-friendly from the git-go.

Could it be that the body processes the fusels differently? Maybe the liver has less fusels to filter out of the system with HB.....

Do we have a HBT member who's a doctor???

:mug:
 
I just wanted to chime in about the fusel alcohol theory, there is something to it. The only batch of homebrew that every gave me headaches was a wheat beer that, after fermentation, sat in keg in an 80 degree room for a few weeks. This beer has some definate fusel alcohol flavor to it, particularly in the finish. So much so in fact that it's the only batch I've ever dumped.

I noticed that drinking only 1 or 2 would give me splitting headaches which I at first attributed to eye strain. I started noticing a correlation between the headaches and this batch, even taken in half a pint at a time, so I pitched it. The rest of my homebrew has been free from this problem. I also remember hearing on Basic Brewing Radio a year or two ago that fusels will cause headaches, so it's something to keep in mind.
 
Pabst Blue Robot said:
I just wanted to chime in about the fusel alcohol theory, there is something to it. The only batch of homebrew that every gave me headaches was a wheat beer that, after fermentation, sat in keg in an 80 degree room for a few weeks. This beer has some definate fusel alcohol flavor to it, particularly in the finish. So much so in fact that it's the only batch I've ever dumped.

I noticed that drinking only 1 or 2 would give me splitting headaches which I at first attributed to eye strain. I started noticing a correlation between the headaches and this batch, even taken in half a pint at a time, so I pitched it. The rest of my homebrew has been free from this problem. I also remember hearing on Basic Brewing Radio a year or two ago that fusels will cause headaches, so it's something to keep in mind.
That's good to know. I wonder what adjuncts the swilleries might be adding to increase their fusel alcohol.
 
I haven't tried a home brew yet, but all this talk about different effects of HB vs. BMC has me really excited. My 1st brew is bottled and almost ready for the fridge. I hope it really is as wonderful as you all say. I'm sure it will be and if so, I'll be making brew by the sh%tload.:rockin: :mug: :rockin: :tank:
 
dibby33 said:
I am actually 412 years old.
Me too!!!

Actually, my take on it is that HB is totally all natural...not filled with preservatives (except hops) and artificial crap that the big guys put in their brews for God knows what reason...oh, yeah, PROFIT!!!

This leads to the reason why they are against content labeling on their containers...not enough room to list all those chemicals and a product name on the same sized container........

Plus the masses will know (somewhat anyway) what they've been drinking all these years.

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!! :mad:
 
homebrewer_99 said:
Me too!!!

Actually, my take on it is that HB is totally all natural...not filled with preservatives (except hops) and artificial crap that the big guys put in their brews for God knows what reason...oh, yeah, PROFIT!!!

This leads to the reason why they are against content labeling on their containers...not enough room to list all those chemicals and a product name on the same sized container........

Plus the masses will know (somewhat anyway) what they've been drinking all these years.

SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE!!!! :mad:

What a whacked flick that was!!! I take a Vit as often as I remember called Super-B. Liver & Brewer's Yeast based. Love it. swear by it, & recommend it often. Looks like someone turned on a neon light when you pee. Works like an energy booster for me. Take it at lunch & helps me push my way out of Hades, I mean work. :rockin:
 
I have heard the fusel alcohol theory before and I would tend to believe it. alot of the el-cheapo brews I have heard are made so quickly that fusel alcohol is somewhat of a by-product or that the cheapo brand of beer is just the batch of regular labeled beer that didn't pass QC and was dumped into cans and given its own name.

I don't know for certain if either is true, but it wouldn't surprise me.

I tend to agree that HB and micro brews is a much more mellow buzz that commercially bottled beer could never have. (<<<spoken like a true beer snob?:D )
 
I read in Charlie Papazian's "The Complete Joy of Homebrewing" that it is infact the vitamin B content in the yeast the helpsprevent hangovers. All of the vitamins that alcohol strips from your body yeast replenishes. The only real hangover symptom that you should get from homebrew is the dehydration.
 
From www.heartlandhealing.com

Chemicals in commercial beer?“In a barley malt brewed beer, the protein structure is there because of the amount of malt used. What mega-breweries do is use cheaper grain such as corn and rice to cut cost. Light beer especially is an industry creation. It lowers the cost to the brewer because they use less ingredients, more water and then it becomes bland and inoffensive to as many people as possible. Then the flavor profile tends to be bland in flavor. Because they use those other grains, they don’t have the protein structure to support a head on the beer. So they use chemicals and additives to make it behave like a beer. Those preservatives and chemicals become a component and a lot of people react to that and can get hung over, not because of alcohol but because of the chemicals.”
And who knows what those chemicals are? One report to Congress many years ago identified substances known as adjuncts that were commonly found or allowed in beer. The list includes propylene glycol alginate, calcium disodium ethylenediaminetetraacetate, peptone, sodium erythorbate, benzaldehyde and about 50 others. Not all of them may be bad but with real beer, they are unnecessary. The larger problem is that the manufacturer isn’t required to list them.
Even back before “light” beer existed, a Creighton University research doctor, James Sullivan, found that cobalt added to beer to increase head retention caused heart disease.
“It’s safe to say that all mega-breweries, whether light beer or not, have something going on in the additive department,” Dobmeier cautioned. “It’s something that craft brewers don’t do because it’s not our mindset to do that. We’re not trying to capture 100 percent market share. We’re just trying to find like-minded people who appreciate quality and flavor.
“There are only four ingredients necessary to make beer. I put in only malted barley, water, yeast and hops,” Dobmeier reminded. That is the same list of ingredients allowed by the German Purity Law to be used in the making of beer.
“Of course we add adjunct grains to the extent that a style calls for them,” he said. “I’ll add wheat to a wheat beer, for example. Or I’ll add oats if I’m making an oat style. But those are grains that are added because of the style, not for cost-cutting or economy.”
“In the craft brew segment, it’s a safe bet that you won’t see those kinds of [chemical] additives that are common in mega-breweries. When I filter beer into a serving tank, that’s where it comes from when they pull the handle at the bar. There’s no need for preservatives because it’s not going to last long enough to need it. When you drink one of my beers, it was grain a couple weeks ago! It’s that fresh. It’s always freshest at the brewery and that’s what we are, a brewery.
“Talk to people who used to work at the old Falstaff plant in South Omaha and they’ll all tell you how great it tasted at the brewery. It always does.”
So if you are looking to reap the health benefits of the brew, do it where it’s brewed, dude. And remember these words from Brewmaster Dobmeier: “Light beer is to beer what Velveeta is to cheese.”

This combined with the yeast makes good sense to me why I only become dehydrated from drinking too much hombrew and don't get sick or have a headache.

I've heard that the major breweries here in Canada add a detergent to achieve the head in their lagers. Nice. "Palmolive. You're soaking in it (or, it in) Mag!"
 
i think the lack of fusels could be the reason and the yeast also helps.cheap whiskey will give you a killer hangover
 
Nostrildamus said:
From www.heartlandhealing.com

[.
“Talk to people who used to work at the old Falstaff plant in South Omaha and they’ll all tell you how great it tasted at the brewery. This combined with the yeast makes good sense to me why I only become dehydrated from drinking too much hombrew and don't get sick or have a headache.

Mag!"

I was allowed to taste Falstaff as a child and I liked it. When I was able to get beer myself I wondered why a-b and other brands tasted so bad I could bearly get it down.

Now I think I know the Falstaff must have been reasonably decent beer at the time.

Thanks for bring back some childhood memories
 
I can't believe sulfites have not been mentioned in this thread yet. Sulfites are commonly added to both beer and wine by commercial outfits to combat oxidation and extend shelf life. All beer and wine create small amounts of it naturally, but commercial breweries and wineries are allowed to put more in to a certian extent. This stuff is not human friendly for the most part and can cause headaches, rashes/hives, and heatburn. My fiancee's sister is especially sensitive to the stuff... her lips puff up like a balloon and turn bright red whenever she drinks something that has a high content of it. My homebrew does not seem to bother her at all.
 
If I have been drinking commerical beer in quantity, I drink plenty of water before bed, and I also mix a few table spoons of nutritional yeast (which is essentially spent brewers yeast) with some juice. Bit of an aquireed taste I suppose, but works great. :drunk:
 
Regardless of the reason(s) for the lack of hangovers, I'd like to raise my glass to all you homebrewers on this eve of St. Patrick. I'll be sucking down a mighty amount tomorrow evening and I hope you do the same.:mug:
 
My Uncle Ed used to work at the Falstaff brewery in Chicago, right up until the point in the 1970's when all the consolidation took place, and put him out of a job.

He used to tell about taking a large flat pan of sulfur, setting it ablaze, and sliding it under a bin of barley malt with a perforated floor. This yellow, noxious smoke would give the beer a "natural golden color". Wonder where the headache came from?
 
I believe some commercial products may use a small amount preservatives to help with shelf life. This mixed with the alcohol may be the problem.
 
I was talking to day witha buddy who is interested in homebrewing. I mentioned that I may be gluten intolerant. Bummer, I like malty brews. But he replied that lots of beers give him headaches. I asked what about other stuff? He said rice gives him headaches too. So I told him about how much rice BMC use. I might make a homebrewer out of him yet. But I may have to quit. Is there a "Law Of Conservation of Homebrewers"?
 
casebrew said:
I was talking to day witha buddy who is interested in homebrewing. I mentioned that I may be gluten intolerant. Bummer, I like malty brews. But he replied that lots of beers give him headaches. I asked what about other stuff? He said rice gives him headaches too. So I told him about how much rice BMC use. I might make a homebrewer out of him yet. But I may have to quit. Is there a "Law Of Conservation of Homebrewers"?
Never the let torch go dark.

I met a guy who had held on to tons of bottles and other brewing "junk" long after he decided to stop brewing (at the urging of his SWMBO). Tossing the stuff would have been easy but he insisted on passing it on (freeby style) to the next interested party.

Homebrewing definitely has a "pay-it-forward" code fo conduct.
 
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