As dedicated beer drinkers, my friends and I have noticed that unlike all other alcoholic beverages, hemp ales/beers (in which non-psychoactive hemp seeds are used as an ingredient)cause no hangover regardless of how much one drinks during the course of the previous evening. We have done extensive research over the past 18 months, dedicating many evenings to drinking copious amounts of 1) Regular NON hemp beers only 2)Non hemp beers in combination with hemp beers and 3) Hemp beers only. Scenarios 1 and 2 always result in the usual horrible hung over feeling the following day. But consistently, we suffer NO hangover symptoms at all, as long as hemp beer is the only alcoholic beverage consumed during the previous evening. The immediate effects of the hemp beer leave us in no doubt of its alcohol content. Yet we awake the next morning feeling as if no drinking had been done at all. Wonderful news for us, but WHY? Are there any brewing experts out there who can help us explain this phenomenon?
Thanks!
Because you don’t inhale.
Even some non-hemp beers. I don’t know what casues a hangover, but I know that you won’t get one from a beer that passes the German Beer Purity law. (The Reinheitsgebut(sp?)) I also have never gotten a hangover from Guinness or Sam Adams. I have gotten many hangovers from Bud and Miller products.
My guess is that whoever is making your hemp beer is being pretty careful that nothing else is going into it besides hemp and the necessary ingredients of beer. To me, hemp beer is a cheesy gimmick to get stoners to buy the product. I’ll stick with Guinness.
Cecil on hangovers.
I don’t know why you don’t get hang overs, but it was my understanding that those nasty curses of having a blast are cause by the effects of too much alcohol in the blood, which does unpleasant things to the brain, eventually causing it to swell. Once it swells, it restricts blood flow. That is one part of a hang over.
The other art is that alcohol is a dehydrating agent. (Never guzzle beer if lost in the desert with no water.) It kicks the kidneys into high mode to get rid of the alcohol, which irritates them. Along with the urine goes potassium and a whole bunch of other electrolytes. The loss of these, in the morning after, causes the shaking, the erratic heart beat, the sour stomach. The bowel disturbances come from the raw effect of the alcohol trying to pickle the intestines.
After drinking heavily, it is best to knock back aspirin, vitamin B100, and guzzle pedialyte. (An infant isolyte solution. Gatorade had citric acid in it and sensitive stomachs might not tolerate it well.)
So, I don’t know. Something would have to be replacing those isolytes as fast as they are being removed in order for one not to get a hang over.
Interesting. I get more of a hangover when I drink heavier beers. I thought it was because of more stuff in them. Maybe it is what you are used too.
I didn’t mean to imply that heavier beers caused less of a hangover. Purer beers do. You can get plenty of light beers that won’t cause too much of a hangover, and heavy beers that will.
In my experience, if I drink Guinness all night, I’ll feel crappy the next day, but without a headache. If I drink Miller Lite all night, I’m not good for anything the next day.
…because with all 4 brands of hemp beers I’ve tried (1 Swiss, 1 from the UK, and 2 from here in the US), there is no hint of crappiness whatsoever the next day. NONE. It really is as if NO drinking at all had gone on. Thanks for everyones replies so far. I’ll continue my research!
Well, the hops used in traditional beer are very closely related to Cannabis. In fact, they are of the same family.
I’m not familliar with hemp beer, but my guess would be that it is actually the flowers (not seeds) used to flavor the beer as is done with hops.
As to why you don’t experience a hangover, I would have to agree with the others that it probably has to do with the purity of the beer.
I guess the other variable is how you define a hangover. Surely you aren’t telling us you can suck down a dozen hemp beers, sleep five hours, and wake up fresh as a daisy?
The purity of the beer might be a significant item here because I read somewhere, some time ago, how brewers like Bush and Millers put a lot of surprising additives into their stuff to increase the flavor and/or the ‘head.’
There was even a test you could do with a drop of soap water. You take X amount of soap, dilute it X amount of times in water to get it real weak. Then you take one drop of that and add it to the freshly poured head of a beer. If the head ‘pops’ and goes down almost instantly – then the beer is ‘pure.’ If it doesn’t, then the beer has enhancers added to promote a firm foam. Enhancers not normally found in the brewing process.
Breweries, by the way, are not required by law (figure that) to list all of the ingredients of their brew on the bottles or cans.
In a smoking thread, it was mentioned that one reason the writer felt it was OK to sue the cigarette industry for so much was because they knew their product was dangerous and still promoted it. There is a possibility that some of the breweries here might be doing the same thing.
I wish I could find that article, because it listed some disgusting things they toss into the mix.
I would define a hangover as anyone else would (I think)–the nausea, headache, dizziness, fatigue, general out of sorts feeling…I’ve never really done an official count, but I do know I have consumed enough to accomplish an unmistakable buzz (for me, an estimated 7,8,9-ish beers in so many hours, of course your mileage may vary) and slept about 6-7 hours, and arisen feeling downright daisy-like and totally unscathed. The thing is when I consume the same amount of non hemp-enhanced beer, and sleep the same amount, I wake up feeling more like a skunk cabbage.
Maybe it is the purity factor, since it would be relatively easy to believe that the (presumed)environmentally concious folk who bother to brew a beer with hemp would be particular about purity, also. Although I have had hangover experiences with other beers that are allegedly pure (i.e. Samuel Adams).
You might be thinking of Cecil’s column on beer ingredients.
I don’t think I could drink no beers, sleep only five hours, and wake up fresh as a daisy.
Well…on a related topic…
You know how cancer/AIDS patients use pot to help their nausea, headaches, etc? Well…It works for hangovers too…Really. Just a little- not enough to get you ‘high’ (although, if your hung-over, your day is pretty much shot anyways, so…) but a little bit really helps. And yes, I did learn that in college.
Secondly, I have found that MILK THISTLE supplements help hangovers! I read about it in some British magazine and have experimented with it at weddings and parties- everyone confirms that it helps. Milk thistle is sold as a liver helper, so my guess is that it helps your body clean your blood from all of the nasty things in alcohol. I take mine before I go to sleep (sometimes before the party if its gonna be a real big one). You can buy this stuff at vitamin stores and some large supermarkets. Not always cheap, but at 10 am in the middle of a hangover I’d pay anything to make it go away.
Just some tips, hope they help.
-T
I’d be interested to see what kind of research you did in order to come to this conclusion.
It has been my experience that my body’s reaction to copious imbibement can be FAR different from occasion to occasion. Stated another way, I’ve had everything from TERRIBLE, HEINOUS hangovers to daisy-like refreshment after drinking approximately the same amount of my drink of choice (in particular, hard ciders).
My WAG is that there are factors at play here that have little to do with the sugar/dehydrating qualities/purity of the drink in question, or at least that have more to do with how one’s body DEALS with these things on that particular morning.
mm
Yeah, but the difference is that (1) beer isn’t necessarily “bad for you”; millions of people the world over drink in moderation with no ill effects, and (2) its easier to point out the addictive properties of cigarettes than is is with alcohol, thus claiming that while a person who has alcohol-related health problems had some control over it, those who smoke have much less control.
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*Originally posted by Grither *
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The humble research I have done is of the informal type… involving myself and my friends drinking an awful lot of both non hemp and (most recently)hemp beers over the many years I have known them…and the fact that every time the drinking involves Hemp Beer Only…there is NO hangover for ANY of us, EVERY time (as there would be after imbibing the same amount of non hemp beer or liquor)…After this phenomenon persisted I began to wonder WHY?..That’s all, I never claimed to be doing any fancy schmancy scientific research. The reason I posted my question was simply to see if any enlightened beings here could help me figure it out.
Thanks.