I feel like some beers just have such a terrible negative affect on me, that profoundly surpasses what most people meany when they dicuss the negative effects.

Whenever I try and look into it, I just see the standard “top ten hangover symptoms” or whatever.

It’s increasingly hard to find useful information on the Internet.

Is there a difference? Or are we all allergic to alcohol and just the symptoms vary?

  • AA5B@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    8
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    The classic sign of an “allergy” is “alcohol flush reaction”, more common with certain Asian ancestry but could be anyone. It’s actually an inability to metabolize alcohol and can be much worse than just a red face, rather than an allergy. look that up and if it fits, you should avoid alcohol

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_flush_reaction

    (As an idiot in college I was always entertained by my roommate turning bright red and acting loopy on less than one beer. Now I know to be concerned)

    • letsgocrazy@lemm.eeOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      1
      ·
      1 year ago

      Yeah, I used to get that randomly - then I moved to Germany where they have a purity law for beer, and that went away… but lately it is coming back… not in the same way - red face / feeling like I have a cold… but say, severe headaches, my guts are totally destroyed.

      In fact, thinking about it - the beer I had was from Ireland so it didn’t have the same purity laws.

    • letsgocrazy@lemm.eeOP
      link
      fedilink
      arrow-up
      3
      ·
      1 year ago

      When it’s beer from the UK, I get red face, snuffles, like I am having a cold, and feel generally like shit - the runs, hangovers, headaches etc.

      When it’s German beer (with the purity laws) - I don’t get the red face and the cold-like effects, but I get runs, feel achey, severe depressive hangovers etc

  • konkonjoja@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    I’m not sure whether there actually is an allergy against alcohol. Generally, an allergy is an exaggerated response by your immune system to a substance. Basically, your body thinks, some substance (mostly proteins) is part of a pathogen (like a hull protein of a bacterium) and responds accordingly. There are different types of allergies depending on what part of your immune system gets activated.

    The adverse effects of alcohol on the other hand, are mostly effects of the poisonous byproducts of intermediate products of alcohol metabolism (the process in which your body gets rid of the alcohol).

    Of course, you can be allergic to another compound of an alcoholic beverage, like some proteins from the malt used to make beer or have another kind of reaction, which isn’t an allergy to other compounds.

  • TheLameSauce@lemmy.world
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    edit-2
    1 year ago

    If your interest is in identifying what component of beer is triggering your reaction, it might be helpful to make friends with a homebrewer or your local small brewery. They can provide you with the individual ingredients (hops, yeast, wort) so you can test which of them gives you the bad reactions.

    Once you figure that out, you can experiment with seeing if there’s styles that don’t affect you as much. If it’s hops, there are styles that go much lighter on the hops, or might use a strain that doesn’t cause as much of a reaction for you. If it’s yeast, try some non-traditional yeasted beers - lagers use a completely different type of yeast than standard ales, as do Weiss beirs (like a heffeweissen) and sours (wild ales) - or just cut out the yeast entirely and do seltzers. If it’s wort (the steeped grain water where the sugar comes from that the yeast converts to alcohol) try some gluten free beers to see if it’s a gluten allergy causing you problems. If gluten free doesn’t make a difference, you’re likely better off avoiding beer (and whiskey, effectively unhopped and distilled beer).

  • squiblet@kbin.social
    link
    fedilink
    arrow-up
    2
    ·
    1 year ago

    I used to always feel tired after drinking beer. I’d be going to sleep after 3-4 beers and glurking up foam - then it was like I had a hangover before I went to bed. I noticed that I felt more clear-headed with 5-6 cocktails, shots or glasses of wine than 3 beers.

    It turned out this was because of celiac disease, so it was a reaction to the gluten in beer. So my question is do you mean just beer or all alcoholic drinks?