We have covered many, many reasons that beer is good for you in moderation. Now Men’s Health has jumped on the bandwagon with 6 more reasons to drink beer and includes beers that illustrate those reasons. They choose a top pick for each category but also give several alternatives as well. So if you can’t get their top pick, check out the article for more choices.

1. Hops
The fragrant flower of the hop vine is what gives beer its characteristic bitterness and fragrance, as well as acting as a natural preservative. Turns out, hops has health benefits, too.

Researchers have shown that [hops] also a significant source of cholesterol-lowering, cancer-fighting, and virus-killing compounds called polyphenols. What’s more, “Just one 12-ounce beer a day decreased fibrinogen, a clotting factor, and increased albumin, which is very important for protein metabolism,” says Shela Gorinstein, Ph.D., a researcher at Jerusalem’s Hebrew University and the author of a 2007 study on the bioactivity of beer.

Best Hops Delivery Vehicle
Avery Maharaja Imperial India Pale Ale

2. Low calorie beers don’t taste like diet drinks
While many think of beer as “fattening,” there are plenty of low-cal brews that taste great. You’ll never see the word “diet” on their labels, though.

Darker beers have a major advantage here: They’re relatively low in alcohol and have thick, creamy, smoky finishes. When the cans were emptied, Beamish stood tall. It contains about 130 calories per 12-ounce can, but with a full flavor and sturdy dark-chocolate notes.

Best Low-Cal Beer
Beamish Irish Stout

3. Organic beer
Most beer is not made with completely organic ingredients. However, more and more brewers are adding organic beers to their offerings.

A 2003 FDA study found that 27 percent of barley and 32 percent of nonorganic wheat products carried pesticide residues. What’s worse, a loophole in the USDA organic-certification standard allows pesticide-grown hops. Our winner, an IPA with a pleasant aftertaste, is made with wheat from organic farms near the brewer’s Vermont facility. “We track every detail of every organic ingredient,” says Max Oswald, a Wolaver’s spokesman.

Best Organic Beer
Wolaver’s India Pale Ale

4. Antioxidants
Beer naturally contains antioxidants, especially darker beers. (See #6 below.) However, fruits and other adjuncts can boost the antioxidant power of beer.

In our taste test, our top pick featured the antioxidant-laden superfruit, pomegranate, shown to combat cancer and lower your risk of Alzheimer’s and heart disease. In a 2006 UCLA study, for example, men who drank a glass of pomegranate juice every day reduced prostate-cancer cell growth by 12 percent. Brewers dump more than 150 gallons of pomegranate juice into every batch (equivalent to 10,000 pomegranates, or half of a fruit per bottle), giving the final product a rasp- berry-like flavor that allows the malt and hops to come through.

Best Alterna-Brew
He’Brew Origin Pomegranate Ale

5. Yeast
Without yeast, there would be no beer. These microscopic critters not only convert sugar to alcohol during fermentation, they are arguably the biggest contributor to the flavor profile of a beer. All beer contains yeast, but bottle-conditioned brews either have additional yeast added during bottling or at least don’t have much of the existing yeast filtered out.

“German doctors used to prescribe bottle-conditioned wheat beer to patients with vitamin deficiencies,” says Oliver. As a probiotic organism, yeast helps your body break down nutrients, regulates your digestive system, maintains your nervous system, and even helps modulate blood-sugar levels. Oliver’s Local 1 won with a balanced blend of spices and subtle malt flavors.

Best Bottle-Conditioned Beer
Brooklyn Brewery Local 1

6. Still more antioxidants
As mentioned, dark beers are king when it comes to antioxidants. Apparently, they are even better than antioxidants taken as pills.

The smooth, deep finish of a dark malt develops during the same high-temperature roasting process that fuels the formation of antioxidants. “Dark beers are loaded with them,” says Joe Vinson, Ph.D., a researcher at the University of Scranton. Vinson showed in a 2003 study that stouts, porters, and browns contain more than twice the antioxidants of lagers, on average. What’s more, “The antioxidants in beer are better at reacting with toxic free radicals than the ones in antioxidant vitamin pills.”

Best Dark Malt
Trappistes Rochefort 8

Prost! Here’s to your health.

Popularity: 7% [?]

Burleigh Brewing, a small independent craft brewer in Queensland, Australia, claims to have created the first no-carb beer. The 88 calorie BIGHEAD Beer is a “full-flavoured, full-strength lager that is 100% natural, free of additives and preservatives, and has a smooth, clean taste.” That’s an impressive claim.

Burleigh Brewing’s CEO, Peta Fielding, said BIGHEAD’s arrival would be welcome news for men and women across Australia who are conscious of their carbohydrate intake, but love their beer.

“There are a lot of low-carb beers on the Australian market, but only one no-carb - and that’s BIGHEAD Beer,” said Fielding. “For the past year, our customers have been asking us when we were going to create a low-carb beer and today, we’ve not only delivered, we’ve exceeded everyone’s expectations with a beer that is truly unique. We don’t know why this hasn’t been done before now, but we’re thrilled that the idea and ability has been developed by an independent Queensland company.”

My opinion of drinking beer and counting calories is well documented. I honestly don’t see how a beer can have zero carbs since malt = sugar and sugar = carbs. I suppose that if the yeast completely converted all sugar to alcohol, that might eliminate the carbs but my uneducated understanding is that complete conversion is virtually impossible. The zero-carb claim is backed up by testing in an independent lab so it must be legit but I would love to hear the science behind it. The Burleigh site doesn’t seem to have any information about the beer.

“Full-flavour, full-srength” and only 88 calories? If any of Beer Utopia’s Aussie readers have tried this brew please let us know how it tastes.

Popularity: 8% [?]

I’ve never been concerned about the calories in my beer. I would rather exercise a little more or skip dessert than drink less-than-full-flavored beer. But even if you are concerned about beer calories, you don’t have to drink beers that taste watered down.

Most light beers save only about 20 to 50 calories per bottle—and some even outweigh regular beers. It’s mostly marketing, says Garrett Oliver, Brooklyn Brewery brewmaster and author of The Brewmaster’s Table (Ecco, 2003). Want maximum taste, minimum guilt?

MSN has an article on the “most satisfying beers for under 140 calories” that lists five full-flavored beers that have fewer calories than most full-flavored brews but aren’t considered “light” beers:

Guinness Draft Bottle - 125 calories
Yuengling Premium - 135 calories
Sol Cerveza Especial - 127 calories
Victory Lager - 138 calories
New Belgium Skinny Dip - 110 calories

I confess that Guinness is the only one on the list that I have had personally. Feel free to relate your experiences with these or other low-calorie beers in the comments.

(Thanks gservo!)

Update: If you would like to know how many calories your favorite beer has, I found a PDF with the calorie count for over 1200 beers. It also has ABV and carb information. Unfortunately, it isn’t free but $6.95 isn’t bad for the amount of reasearch involved in collecting this information.

Popularity: 6% [?]