Seeing as how beer is a diuretic could you balance you beer intake to keep yourself from dehydrating? At what rate could you consume the beverage and not cause more harm than good?
I’m thinking that the short term you could prevent dehydration, but would it be enough to replace your sweat over a longer period of, say, a month or so?
I know that if you drink enough beer you can become dehydrated, and they say not to drink alcohol (beer) on very hot days.
So, what would be the advice on sustaining on beer alone for hydration in the desert?
Alcohol is a diuretic. I saw a table (no cite - at work & too busy to Google) which showed that at concentrations up to about 10% (I think), you do get a hydrating effect. Above that, it is dehydrating. I’m not totally sure about the 10%, but do remember that beer (typically 4 - 5%) was hydrating, but wine (12%) was dehydrating.
So based on that I expect you could survive on beer.
[QUOTE=Uncommon Sense
I know that if you drink enough beer you can become dehydrated, and they say not to drink alcohol (beer) on very hot days.
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“They” are wrong in the case of beer. Although certainly the alcohol in beer (or the caffiene in colas) makes that beverage less “hydating” that just plain water, there is enough water in there to keep you hydrated, if perhaps a little soused. You could likely survive on just beer, which also has some small food value, for quite some time.
I’m sure we discussed this before. I’ll try to find the thread, but IIRC we decided that it was possible, especially if you could have more than one type of beer. Coors Light for hydration, Celebrator for nutrition. A month would be easy. After that it gets problematic, as you start running into nutrition deficiencies.
Also depends on how much we can play with the definition of “beer.” A friend of mine from the Democratic Republic of Congo invited me to a family party where they were opening the latest batch of homebrewed bannana beer. It was in those 5 gallon paint drums, with the barley and hops floating in it. The beer wasn’t strained, you drank the barley with the beer and the brewer’s yeasty sludge. My guess is that stuff would keep you fairly well fed for quite some time.
There was an article recently in 9I think) The New Brewer magazine by a guy that subsisted entirely on beer for a month. I believe it was Dick Cantwell. I’ll look it up and see.
Unfiltered or bottle-conditioned beer would be the better choice because you would have the yeast sediment available, which is an excellent source of B vitamins
