Beer; Health and Pasteurization

[brewjack]

Hi all,
I've been doing a bit of reading on the health benefits of drinking beer. Yup, they exist! In particular, I'm interested in the benefits of unpasteurized beer. I've found a fair amount of good info on beer and health, in particular, a pdf of Charles Bamforth's Beer: Health and Nutrition. He, as far as I've seen, makes no differentiation between pasteurized and unpasteurized beer however.
I'm wondering if anyone has any data on this subject. My own feeling, obviously, is that unpasteurized beer is far superior, but I'd like to have sources.

 

[GaryJohn]

All I can think of off the top of my head is the nutrients contained in the yeast. Mainly B vitamins and trace elements. I'm not too sure what else, but I'm interested as well!

 

[brewjack]

yeah, I know about those. There are a few others as well, folic acid, some good form of cholesterol, antioxidants, and silica. (a quick article here: http://www.timeforbeer.net/wine-is-fine-but-beer-may-be-better/)

But all of those are in pasteurized beer as well. I'm convinced that "living" beer has to have some types of documented advantages, but I haven't found any yet.

 

[brewjack]

Kinda slowly answering my own question, but I found this quote from Revvy in another thread:

I've posted this a million times, it's from a Belgian Beer website. It talks about the benefits of the yeast in living beers.

 

[ni*]

I think I'd think twice about someone extolling the health benefits of yeast who doesn't know what kingdom it's in.

But more to the point, deciding something is true and then setting out to determine why you're right is just completely wrong-headed, and a major reason why people believe a lot of very silly things.

 

[brewjack]

sure. Maybe. That's why I was acknowledged my bias.
Still, doesn't mean I'm wrong.

Besides, it's not as if I've come to this hypothesis without some evidence, after all, I have drank a few beers in my time. I have my own experiences which are telling me something is true, and I'd like to know if there is quantitative evidence to support those experiences. I don't believe there is anything "wrong-headed" about using my own experiences as a guide for further investigation. If there is evidence to support the opposite conclusion, I would be interested in that as well.

 

[truebe]

lol come on. the guy who wrote that was just using flowery language and clearly understands that yeast is not a plant.

 

[corax]

lol come on. the guy who wrote that was just using flowery language and clearly understands that yeast is not a plant.

No, given that the author doesn't understand anything else they're spouting off about, that is not at all clear.

 

[truebe]

okay.

 

[brewjack]

Complaints with scientific rigor aside, I'm still answering my original question here. I thought I'd post some of the things I found on this subject, in case someone else is interested (I know at least GaryJohn is).

This is an article by a Home Brewer/Pharmacist who used a strain of yeast which had been isolated to treat gastrointestinal problems to brew a beer. His suspicion at the end of the article, is that any strain of yeast would have similar results but that there has been little research into the subject.
http://byo.com/stories/article/indices/36-homebrew-stories/1751-pharmacy-brewing-last-call

Here's an article on the health benefits of brewers yeast, which is obviously in greater concentrations in bottle conditioned beers. No mention if there is any advantage to live brewer's yeast however.

 

[ni*]

His suspicion at the end of the article, is that any strain of yeast would have similar results but that there has been little research into the subject.

He would seem to have been wrong about both any strain of yeast having similar results and about there having been little research on this: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC183921/. To be honest, that's sort of what you'd expect from medical opinion in Brew Your Own.

If you're going to find scientific support for your idea (obviously I'm confident you won't, but I don't suppose that matters much) I think you would do better to look for it in scientific journals, rather than back issues of Brew Your Own or advertisements for Belgian beer.