[A] new analysis of 100 commercial beers shows the hoppy beverage is a significant source of dietary silicon, a key ingredient for bone health.
Though past research has suggested beer is chockfull of silicon, little was known about how silicon levels varied with the type of beer and malting process used. So a pair of researchers took one for the team and ran chemical analyses on beer’s raw ingredients. They also picked up 100 commercial beers from the grocery store and measured the silicon content.
The silicon levels of beer types, on average:
* Indian Pale Ale (IPA): 41.2 mg/L
* Ales: 32.8 mg/L
* Pale Ale: 36.5 mg/L
* Sorghum: 27.3 mg/L
* Lagers: 23.7 mg/L
* Wheat: 18.9 mg/L
* Light lagers: 17.2 mg/L
* Non Alcoholic: 16.3 mg/L
I show this study to Don Tequila over at the Liquor and Rubber Balls Sport Bar and Transmission Repair on Monday evening, a traditionally slow night. Don still looks a little ragged after SuperBowl Sunday: the raucous crowd of mostly drunken lesbians who are his stock and trade left him with a humongous clean-up task.
“I found that old sign in the back,” he says to me, “and I figured it might be good for a laugh so I hung it up. They made a drinking game out of it.”
The sign, in a mock Wild West font, reads
Gentlemen’s Saloon
Liquor In the Front
Poker in the Back
Nice. What kind of drinking game?
“You don’t want to know,” he grunts. “The good news is, nobody got arrested.”
Just handcuffed, I bet.
“Well, that’s every weekend. ‘Specially on singles night.” He frowns at the list of beers before him, and grunts again. “So the beers that do you the least good are the ones with the worst taste and least alcohol. That adds up, for a change.”
I had the same thought, Don. Listen to your body. Friends don’t let friends drink lite beer. As for NA beer, hell, what’s the point?
“I wouldn’t wash my balls with wheat beer, either,” says Don, “let alone drink that swill.” He eyes the list again. “I wonder if I would sell more beer around here I could link this study to preventing female osteoporosis.”
After this weekend, do you really need to sell MORE beer?
“That’s my bread and butter,” he says. “You drinking?”
No. Never on Monday. I just dropped by to see if you survived. I remember last year.
“You do?” asks Don, amused. “I don’t.”












