Re-Post

(it didn't go awol on google-groups at least)

Anyway, yes I think there's lots of good stuff in it, but not only good stuff.

Anyone else think that it's a bit spurious to compare equal measures of wine beer & spirits when looking at calories etc? Shouldn't it be done on comparing a normal drink of each - e.g. a shot of spirit with & without mixer, a medium & large glass of wine, and a half or pint of beer at both 3.5% & 5%?

The stuff about the typical wine glass now being 175ml & often 250ml is important & interesting, likewise I think there's also a trend for wines to be stronger - 14.5% is now not uncommon, wheras prev. about

12% was the norm IME. No mention of alcopops either, and I would have guessed beer would compare well, as they seem to be sugar-ridden & fairly alcohol.

I think it's good to see an organisation trying to dispel the myth of the beer-belly - saying that beer itself isn't very unhealthy, but your lifestyle in terms of what you eat & how much, plus how much exercise you do, might be.

I went to a v interesting talk with someone from the Brewing Research International(*) a few years ago which had lots of info about this. see here -

(*BRI Nutfield, Surrey - cheers MikeMcG

Totally.

I'm a big fat bastard partly because I like to drink 10 pints of beer of an evening, and there's no denying that that's a lot of extra calories.

Who can even drink close to 10 pints of wine, let alone spirits?

In general, beer is extremely easy to drink, and therefore is consumed in far larger quantities than most other liquids, whether alcoholic or not. (Fuck, I know I probably couldn't down 10 pints of Coca-Cola, or even Orange Juice, and I'm not sure I've ever drunk that much water, even on my thirstiest of days).

BTN

True, but you could enjoy a nice wine spritzer & get more mouthfuls (I am joking, honestly).

One good thing for wine-drinkers is that at least nowadays finding decent wine in a pub is, if not a certainty, at least much more common.

Plus, unlike with decent cask beer, it's harder for a pub to screw up a decent bottle of wine. (in general tho I drink good beer in decent pubs who know how to keep it) cheers MikeMcG

Another asset beer has IMO is that drinking is more controlable. Owing to the liquid capacity, one is able to maintain a degree of sobriety.

Drink the equivalent of shorts and one could end up on the floor or out the door:-)

Yes, drinking beer regularly does also however mean that when I do drink something else (wine, spirits, etc) I tend to gulp it down; which can have a nasty effect on one's sobriety.