Author: Marshall Schott

I was intrigued, as I imagine many were, by the advice Jim Koch of Samuel Adams/Boston Beer Company gave in a recent Esquire article when asked how he can drink so much beer without getting drunk. He claimed that by consuming “1 teaspoon per beer” of active dry yeast mixed into yogurt, the effects of the alcohol are essentially mitigated. This is apparently due to the presence of alcohol dehydrogenases (ADH) in the dry yeast, which metabolizes the alcohol from the beer in one’s gut.

Okay.

I’m skeptical, especially when it comes to weird claims like this. My hunch is that it is more likely Mr. Koch lives in a constant state of at least moderate drunkeness, thus he rarely comes across as “drunk.” Who am I to judge?

I’m also curious. Could this odd and likely disgusting concoction actually reduce the impact of alcohol on the body? I wanted to see for myself. I got home from work last Friday and immediately foraged through the pantry to find 2 packets of active dry yeast, which I blended with a tube of my kids’ Go-Gurt and consumed. I then embarked on this exBEERiment and documented my experience:

VIMEO LINK

| UPDATE |

I wanted to share this interesting response from r/homebrewing user, TreyWalker, in regards to this subject:

Of course this is a joke. Unpasteurized homebrew has millions of yeast cells still in it. Saccharomyces cerevisiae has an optimal ph of 8.3-9, the stomachs pH of 1-2 (up to 4-5) denatures yeast quite quickly.

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/content/dam/sigma-aldrich/docs/Sigma/Datasheet/6/a7011dat.pdf

If that weren’t enough, best case scientific scenario:

One unit [S. cerevisiae ADH in lyophilized powder] will convert 1.0 μmole of ethanol to acetaldehyde per min at pH 8.8 at 25 °C (77°F)

http://www.sigmaaldrich.com/catalog/product/sigma/a2529?lang=en®ion=US

Bad math below, as I’m not a chemist / microbiologist by any measure, but I’m confident there isn’t any catastrophic mathematical errors that would derail this argument:

1.0 μmole of ethanol is roughly equal to 0.00005838mL. 60min/per unit = 0.0035028ml. In a 4.5% beer, there’s ~15.9696ml of ethanol. To metabolize only half of that in an hour, would require 2280 units (molecular weight = 40.4 x 10(3), times 2280) of the above powder, per the lab specifications / temperatures / pH.

Furthermore, you don’t want a belly full of acetaldehyde, as it’s now considered carcinogenic:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21401890

About the only useful thing consuming extra yeast would be to stave off C. diff infections:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9753273

TL;DR: Jim Koch is a professional functioning alcoholic and doesn’t have any other real trick up his sleeve.

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