Help me settle a bet....

I've been making a lot of high grav beers lately. My buddy (who's a little sissy) asked why I'm not making more session beers. I told him because when I get off work, I'd rather have a couple 9% brews before I go to bed, rather than six 5% beers. Plus, If I'm drinking all those calories, I'd rather get more bang for my buck (hence high alcohol %)

My buddy argues that since there is more sugar and malt in high gravity brews, there are definitely more calories. So what's the truth here? Does a 9% brew contain twice as much calories as two 4.5% beers? I know it differs from recipe to recipe, just generally speaking.

I'm not one for calorie counting, just curious over who wins this argument.


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---Last paragraph would be the one to read if you are a post skimmer---

Maybe I'm a "sissy" but I like beer that tastes good, alcohol being a secondary or tertiary consideration. Good beer is just, well, good! Getting drunk or worrying about how much alcohol a guy can get in fewer beers is for someone else, and (In My Humble Opinion) misses the point of what good beer is about. NOT talking about you, just in general there are some guys out there, usually younger guys, that feel alcohol is the be-all, end-all of drinking. Beer should be to someone, IMHO, something that is a wonderful gift from a benevolent universe, to quote the author of "Radical Brewing", and is, again IMHO, not something to gorge alcohol with. Again maybe I'm a sissy but that's fine.

I'd place my money, since I'm not a betting man, on a counter in a place where good craft beers are sold or where supplies are sold that we might make good craft beer!

In direct response to alcohol vs malt regarding health considerations and nutritional bang for the calorie buck, IMHO, noting that sugars and alcohol both provide calories and would therefore be a 'wash', the higher antioxidant level of a more malty and hoppy beer wins. Best to you and yours!

 

Well, that really depend on the grain bill and how much residual sugar is in the final brew.

Also consider that a calorie isn't just a calorie. Your body metabolizes calories from alcohol than it does calories from simple sugars which is a little different than how it metabolizes complex sugars.

A high gravity wort has higher calories than a low calorie one. However, if the high gravity wort is highly fermentable (say, a Belgian Triple) while the low-gravity wort is less fermentable (say, a milk stout) then the fermented high gravity beer will have less carbohydrate-based calories than the low-gravity one- but it will have more alcohol-based calories.

Now, my guess is that (assuming similar grain bills adjusted for scale) the calorie count for a single 9% beer would be pretty darn similar to the calorie count in two 4.5% beers. The difference is the type of calorie and how your body processes it.

 

I don't think you can really make the comparison you've suggested without OG and FG information. Though, in general, alcohol has fewer calories than the sugar from which it was generated, if that makes sense. To put it another way, for a given OG, a beer that fermented to a lower FG will have slightly fewer calories than a beer with a higher FG.

Take a look at this blog post for a formula to estimate calories in beer with a known OG and FG (I have no idea how accurate it is because he doesn't say how the formula was generated):

http://beersmith.com/blog/2011/02/04/counting-calories-in-your-homebrewed-beer/

 

I'm going to bow to Craptain's assertion that alcohol is less calorie-dense than the carbs in malt. So instead of the 9% being equal to two 4.5% (my assertion) Craptain would have the 9% having less calories. His logic seems better than mine. (And I wrote mine while drunk.)

In either event, two random dudes on the internet have definitively proclaimed your friend wrong. That's proof enough right there, isn't it?

 

Just for fun, here are three imaginary beers run through the calorie estimator I linked above:

A Belgian Tripel made with significant amounts of highly fermentable simple sugars such that a very low FG was reached:
OG = 1.075 FG = 1.006 ABV = 9.0% Calories = 251

A syrupy imperial milk stout with lots of unfermentable sugars:
OG = 1.099 FG = 1.030 ABV = 9.0% Calories = 352

A light-bodied pilsner:
OG = 1.042 FG = 1.008 ABV = 4.5% Calories = 137


So two imaginary light-bodied pilsners have more calories (274) than one imaginary tripel (251), but fewer calories than one imaginary imperial milk stout (353, assuming you're not lactose intolerant ).

Yes, I'm a nerd who's doing math on a Friday evening.

 

So basically, you can have two Miller Lite's vs one Chimay or Founders Breakfast Stout.

Yeah, this is a no brainer.

 

Completely unscientific, but let's look at an examples:

Old Rasputin (RIS) - 9%abv - 270 calories - 30cal/per ABV point
vs.
Bud Light - 4.1%abv - 123 calories - 30cal/ABV point

Looks like it comes up more or less even, based on this extremely definitive sample size I came up with.


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So basically, you can have two Miller Lite's vs one Chimay or Founders Breakfast Stout.

Yeah, this is a no brainer.

 

Seriously, you might consider getting help if you're contemplating a sixer per day. Hey, just sayin'.

 

michelob 64 for the win!

 

Awesome. Awesome, awesome responses all. Much thanks to BigJack and CraptainWertz for your indepth responses. Very much appreciated!


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And I agree with Tutsbrew as well. Good beer is good beer. Alcohol should be viewed as a pleasant byproduct as we enjoy this divine gift from our creator!!


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You know, strictly from an energy consideration — and calories are a measurement unit of energy — an equal mass of low gravity beer has the same energy as an equal mass of one made with a larger grain bill.

The key, here, is to measure by mass, not volume.

When we drink using a glass or bottle as our portion size, we're using volume, not mass.

From the definition of specific gravity, an equal volume of 'lower gravity' beer has less mass than a 'higher gravity' beer. By definition, of course — so long as the volume that's being consumed is the same.

Lower gravity beer has less mass per volume; hence it has less energy, as measured in calories.

Remember, E = m×c². The 'c' is a constant. Calories are strictly dependent on mass.

 

But is that not relating to nuclear physics - and it is more E = Δm * c² so how much mass has changed during the metabolisation of the substance???
This is not a strictly amount of energy/calories issue - as I think others have stated before. The body utilises alcohol and different types of sugar differently, so 1 unit of energy from alcohol is not equivilant to 1 unit of energy from maltose to 1 unit of energy from lactose. I found this article that give a very basic overview of the subject for food energy http://drinks.seriouseats.com/2013/...alcohol-calories-count-digesting-spirits.html

 

Gosh golly, this is so wrong, I don't even know where to start. e=mc^2 has absolutely NOTHING to do with calorie counts in a beer. I don't have the time (or give a sh!t) to write out an explanation of Special Relativity, but suffice to say... this is the most bizarre misinterpretation of Einstein's famous equation I've ever seen.

Also, calories are NOT "strictly dependent on mass". We aren't destroying the mass and converting it to pure energy - that's where e=mc^2 becomes relevant. Chemical reactions taking place in your body DO NOT use that principle. If they did, you'd have what amounts to a nuclear reactor in your stomach.

 

Lol that's awesome... How bleeping drunk was this guy? But he may be onto something here...

As (well some of us) know. E=mc² means Energy = mass times the speed of light squared.

It basically means the faster an object of mass travels through space, the more force is being generated against the object. This means an infinity amount of energy needs to be created in order to propel an object of mass into space at the speed of light-rendering it physically impossible with our means and current science.

In beer terms I believe the formula will need to be modified a little...

S = by²

Now this formula works... It simply means Shît = beer times yeast squared

That means the more yeast in your beer, the more energy your shìt has.

So with that said, you do in fact burn calories with the explosive shìts a yeast beer provides.... And you can gain muscle tone too.

So to all you haters who doubted this guy's genius



How you like them apples?