Potency of alcohol

Factual Questions
1

I’m sure everyone has had to sit through an alcohol awareness class at some point during their school years. One fact that was always presented that never held any fascination for me until later (ie. post-21) was that a 12-oz. beer has an equal amount of alcohol as a 1-oz shot of whiskey or a glass of wine.

I’ve never indulged, before or since, too often in hard liquor, and I can count the number of times I’ve consumed wine on one hand (the extra fingers from the double vision help - just kidding). However, I tend to drink beers with a little more flavor to them than Budweiser, Coors, Miller, etc. Now, the US seems to be about the only country that doesn’t clearly label the alcohol content of the beer, so many of the beers I drink I’m able to check the alcohol level before I chug away.

My question is this: most of these beers are either spot on or hover around the “typical” 5% by volume amount. Give or take a few tenths or even thousandths of a percent, this is right around the same alcohol content as the aforementioned “Big Three” - Bud, Coors, and Miller. However, I can drink anywhere from 50-100% more of the latter three types of beer with the same effect on my (in)sobriety as if I were to drink a correspondingly lesser amount of my preferred ales of choice. Similarly, though I can pace myself for long hours on beer alone, throwing even one shot of hard liquor into the equation causes my composure to take a nosedive. I have a theory about the latter: even though a shot of whiskey has no more alcohol than a 12 oz. beer, since one tends to gulp it all at once it would be the equivalent of shotgunning a beer (a practice I definitely do not claim to be able to “pace myself” at). This makes sense. But back to the original question: why do beers and ales of similar alcohol content seem to have a different effect on the bloodstream differing on their taste and (possibly) the type of beer involved?

2

Drunken-ness is a subjective experience. Your perceptions of what the effect of what you are drinking will affect how drunk you let yourself feel.

3

You don’t mention what the other beers you enjoy are but some breweries calculate percent alcohol by weight, and some calculate percent alcohol by volume, a practice which can cause some confusion. According to Charlie Papazian’s “New Complete Joy of Homebrewing” to convert alcohol by weight to alcohol by volume multiply by 1.25. To go the other way, multiply by 0.8. So you might be getting 25% more alchohol per beer than you think you are.

4

Especially if you are drinking that Heisenberg Beer.

5

I’m not sure it’s entirely a subjective experience, although I have heard that chilling beer at a lower temperature will cause it to enter the bloodstream faster. Nonetheless, most of the beers I drink are not kept on ice like Bud, Coors, etc. and even on draught are served at a slightly warmer temperature. Serving beers too cold tends to kill much of the flavor, although this isn’t really important if you’re drinking Bud or it’s ilk. For the record, I like 'em as exotic as I can find 'em, but as far as stuff I have regular access to, I’ve lately been drinking a lot of Spaten (Oktoberfest and Optimator - yes, I’m aware of the latter’s alcohol content), St Arnold’s Spring Bock, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale & Fuller’s Londer Ale.

Also, here is a link with the alcohol contents of most widely available brews in the US:

http://www.realbeer.com/edu/health/calories.php

6

Sometime in the next decade, think about trying this experiment: Get hold of some good whiskey, pour yourself a shot, and then sip it, taking as much as 10 minutes to polish it off. It’s easier on your metabolism, and surprisingly convivial.