Brookston Beer Bulletin

Jay R. Brooks on Beer

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Happy Labor Day: Beer Creates Jobs

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occupations
Happy Labor Day everybody. I thought this was a good day to highlight a press release from the Beer Institute about “how one job inside a brewery supports another 45 jobs outside. From farmers to factory workers, and truck drivers to tavern owners, beer puts people to work.” It’s not just that breweries employ a lot of people — they do — but many more job are created beyond the brewery that might not exist were it not for the beer. As their research shows, for every job inside a brewery, there are 45 related jobs outside the brewery.

BEER 3982 JOBS

From the press release:

“Today we toast to the industry’s 2 million men and women who make it possible for Americans to enjoy their favorite beer,” said Jim McGreevy, Beer Institute President and CEO. “America’s preference for beer is a huge boon to the national economy and the American worker.”

According to an economic study jointly commissioned by the Beer Institute and the National Beer Wholesalers Association in 2012, U.S. brewers and beer importers are the foundation for an industry that employs more than 2 million Americans, directly and indirectly. Beer also contributed $246.6 billion to America’s economy and generated $49 billion in local, state and federal taxes.

A Beer Institute analysis showed that each job in a brewery supports other jobs in the agriculture, business and personal services, construction, finance insurance and real estate, manufacturing, retail, transportation and communication, travel and entertainment and wholesale sectors.

They also broke down the number of jobs flowing from beer for each state. Not surprisingly, California was number one, with 241,640 contributing over $34 billion into the economy. After California, Texas, Florida, New York and Illinois have the most beer-related jobs, but even in the smallest states, thousands of people are gainfully employed thanks to beer. The total number of jobs nationwide is just over 2 million with a total economic impact of almost $247 billion. To see it broken down even farther, including by state and Congressional district, check out Beer Serves America.

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Happy Labor Day, the only this missing from this picture? Where are the brewers?

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How’d You Really Get That Drink?

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scales
Navigating the maze of state liquor laws is a challenge for anybody, but especially any bar, restaurant or brewery trying to do business in many, if not every, one of the states. A Chicago law firm, the Hays Firm LLC, with a practice area in Restaurant and Bar Services, created an interesting infographic detailing many of the quirky differences of U.S. Liquor License Laws & Facts, particularly their laws on licensing, BYOB and corkage, introduced with the following:

When you wind down at the end of the day or meet up for a social night with friends for a drink, have you thought about how and why you have access to alcohol? Maybe you ordered a beverage at a bar or restaurant, or maybe you picked up a bottle of wine or a six-pack of beer before watching a Sunday football game at home.

But, how’d you really get the drink in your hand? There are U.S. regulations that provide or limit public or business access to alcohol. Furthermore, alcohol sales and serving in restaurants, bars, liquor stores, grocery stores, and even patios and events are subject to local or state laws, or consumers or sellers risk losing permission to interact with it, which could result in legal penalties, and even decreased revenues that keep businesses thriving. Many restaurants aim to have alcohol sales account for 30% of their revenue, so not adhering to liquor license and Bring-Your-Own-Beverage (BYOB) laws, could drive customers away and negatively impact profitability.

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The Heart & Health & Beer

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heart
I can’t tell you how sick I am of the unscrupulous tactics of prohibitionists; the way they bend the truth to suit their agenda, the way they play so fast and loose with the truth and the way they demonize those of us in the alcohol industry. I find their hypocrisy more than a little unsettling, especially when they claim to be “watchdogs,” keeping the alcohol industry honest, while being so dishonest in the process. Why they continue to receive positive press is bewildering to me. Here’s the latest example of this, from one of the most egregious of the bunch, Alcohol Justice. Here’s what they’ve recently added to their daily tweetings.

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Oh, Alcohol Justice, how do I hate thee, let me count the ways.

  1. Alcohol no benefit to the heart, even light use: You probably won’t be too surprised to learn that clicking on the subsequent link takes you to a story that says roughly the same thing, but that the study’s conclusion requires a great leap from one conclusion to another, with no obvious causation or relation of one to the other, as you’ll see below. AJ happily picks up on bad and sloppy reporting, and an apparently agenda promoting press release without ever noticing that the basis for all of it does not support the headline.
  2. Refutes bogus industry claims: Okay, this one really pisses me off. The claims about how moderate alcohol consumption can benefit heart health are not “industry claims,” but comes from numerous scientific studies, and dismissing them all as “bogus” with a wave of the hand over one so-called study, even if right on point, is so mindbogglingly disingenuous and dishonest to make them utterly fundamentalist prohibitionist wingnuts with absolutely no regard for honesty or truth whatsoever.

Unfortunately they’re lead down this rabbit hole partly by one media outlet, a press release by one of the universities involved in the study and even a weird, untrue statement by one of the researchers.

So let’s start with the news media report. Alcohol does not benefit the heart, claims new study is on the website Medical News Today, which in the past has also used misleading headlines and twisted analysis of studies to misrepresent the results. The article is written by a Catharine Paddock, who apparently has a PhD and despite writing numerous times about medical and health topics, has a background as a “technical writer in the computer and electronics industry.” She also “enjoys keeping fit, yoga, reading, [and] walking,” so she’s obviously qualified to write about complex medical studies. But to be fair, she pretty much uncritically reports and reworks the press release on the study. Despite Medical New Today helpfully providing links to both the press release and the original study, she appears not to have read or looked at the study itself, otherwise she might have noticed that the two don’t really agree.

Next, let’s look at the “news release” from Penn Medicine, titled New Study Shows Drinking Alcohol, Even Light-to-Moderate Amounts, Provides No Heart Health Benefit, subtitled “Results Call into Question Previous Studies Suggesting One Drink Per Day May Promote Cardiovascular Health,” so it’s obvious that’s where the mischaracterizations begin. Curiously, they don’t even provide a link to the study that’s the subject of their news release. But given that they’re pushing this study to toot their own horn, to promote the work of their own Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania, it’s not too surprising that they’d oversell its accomplishments. It’s slightly more surprising that the mainstream news media would not critically question it, but it’s still troubling and more than a little annoying given that most people expect that a news story has been vetted and checked for accuracy. But more often what happens is overworked journalists simply rework a press release into a story and often don’t bother investigating its veracity or interview anyone with a contrary opinion or even someone simply outside or not involved in the organization who put out the press release itself.

But let’s go first to the study itself, titled simply Association between alcohol and cardiovascular disease: Mendelian randomisation analysis based on individual participant data. Here’s the abstract:

Objective To use the rs1229984 variant in the alcohol dehydrogenase 1B gene (ADH1B) as an instrument to investigate the causal role of alcohol in cardiovascular disease.

Design Mendelian randomisation meta-analysis of 56 epidemiological studies.

Participants 261 991 individuals of European descent, including 20 259 coronary heart disease cases and 10 164 stroke events. Data were available on ADH1B rs1229984 variant, alcohol phenotypes, and cardiovascular biomarkers.

Main outcome measures Odds ratio for coronary heart disease and stroke associated with the ADH1B variant in all individuals and by categories of alcohol consumption.

Results Carriers of the A-allele of ADH1B rs1229984 consumed 17.2% fewer units of alcohol per week (95% confidence interval 15.6% to 18.9%), had a lower prevalence of binge drinking (odds ratio 0.78 (95% CI 0.73 to 0.84)), and had higher abstention (odds ratio 1.27 (1.21 to 1.34)) than non-carriers. Rs1229984 A-allele carriers had lower systolic blood pressure (−0.88 (−1.19 to −0.56) mm Hg), interleukin-6 levels (−5.2% (−7.8 to −2.4%)), waist circumference (−0.3 (−0.6 to −0.1) cm), and body mass index (−0.17 (−0.24 to −0.10) kg/m2). Rs1229984 A-allele carriers had lower odds of coronary heart disease (odds ratio 0.90 (0.84 to 0.96)). The protective association of the ADH1B rs1229984 A-allele variant remained the same across all categories of alcohol consumption (P=0.83 for heterogeneity). Although no association of rs1229984 was identified with the combined subtypes of stroke, carriers of the A-allele had lower odds of ischaemic stroke (odds ratio 0.83 (0.72 to 0.95)).

Conclusions Individuals with a genetic variant associated with non-drinking and lower alcohol consumption had a more favourable cardiovascular profile and a reduced risk of coronary heart disease than those without the genetic variant. This suggests that reduction of alcohol consumption, even for light to moderate drinkers, is beneficial for cardiovascular health.

So in this case, after all the scary headlines and statements like “[t]he latest findings call into question previous studies which suggest that consuming light-to-moderate amounts of alcohol (0.6-0.8 fluid ounces/day) may have a protective effect on cardiovascular health” they finally get to the truth, of sorts, well after many people probably stopped reading. Here it is: “Researchers found that individuals who carry a specific gene which typically leads to lower alcohol consumption over time have, on average, superior cardiovascular health records. Specifically, the results show that individuals who consume 17 percent less alcohol per week have on average a 10 percent reduced risk of coronary heart disease, lower blood pressure and a lower Body Mass Index.” That’s right, the conclusion is about people with a specific gene.

In the study’s abstract conclusion, they go from stating that those people who have the specific genetic variant drink less and also had “a reduced risk of coronary heart disease than those without the genetic variant” to a conclusion that therefore “reduction of alcohol consumption, even for light to moderate drinkers, is beneficial for cardiovascular health.” But that makes no sense whatsoever.

But perhaps more annoying is a comment by one of the researchers at Penn, Co-lead author Michael Holmes, who essentially dismisses every study before his own as worthless as he arrogantly mansplains that those were all observational studies, just mere “observations,” unlike his study. His tone is clearer when you watch the video, but essentially it’s this, from the media report:

He explains how for some time, observational studies have suggested only heavy drinking is bad for the heart, and that light drinking might even provide some benefit, and this has led some people to believe moderate consumption is good for their health, even lowering their risk of heart disease.

And from the press release:

“These new results are critically important to our understanding of how alcohol affects heart disease. Contrary to what earlier reports have shown, it now appears that any exposure to alcohol has a negative impact upon heart health,” says co-lead author Michael Holmes, MD, PhD, research assistant professor in the department of Transplant Surgery at the Perelman School of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania. “For some time, observational studies have suggested that only heavy drinking was detrimental to cardiovascular health, and that light consumption may actually be beneficial. This has led some people to drink moderately based on the belief that it would lower their risk of heart disease. However, what we’re seeing with this new study, which uses an investigative approach similar to a randomized clinical trial, is that reduced consumption of alcohol, even for light-to-moderate drinkers, may lead to improved cardiovascular health.”

In addition, his statement that people have been taking up drinking alcohol because previous studies showed a positive association between moderate drinking and heart health is utterly obnoxious. I’ve read a lot of these studies and every single one is overly careful to make sure nobody should ever take their study’s conclusion as a catalyst to start drinking. Between that and the incessant chorus in our society about the dangers of drinking or the idea that drinking’s a sin, this statement, I think, tells us more about his own personal issues with alcohol than any objective reality.

But despite the dismissive tone, waving aside every other study on this topic, suggesting this one study somehow supersedes and replaces them all, there have been perhaps hundreds, or more, studies around the world on the association between alcohol consumption and heart health. I have a hard time accepting that every one of them was “observational” or that they’re all now meaningless now that he’s done this one.

Cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in U.S., but moderate drinking can reduce risks 40-60% [Journal, Alcoholism, 2004] and the benefits of alcohol on the heart has been known since 1904 [Journal of the AMA, 1904].

The Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism wrote that “Numerous well-designed studies have concluded that moderate drinking is associated with improved cardiovascular health” and a Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association reported that “the lowest mortality occurs in those who consume one or two drinks per day.” On top of that, the World Health Organization Technical Committee on Cardiovascular Disease asserted that the relationship between moderate alcohol consumption and reduced death from heart disease could no longer be doubted. [AIM Digest (Supplement), June 1997].

And here’s just a sample of previous studies, taken from Alcohol Problems and Solutions. And none of them are bogus industry claims, either.

Heart Health

Medical research has demonstrated a strong relationship between moderate alcohol consumption and reduction in cardiovascular disease in general and coronary artery disease in particular. [Moore, R., and Pearson, T. Moderate alcohol consumption and coronary artery disease. Medicine, 1986, 65 (4), 242-267.]

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism found that moderate drinking is beneficial to heart health, resulting in a sharp decrease in heart disease risk (40%-60%). [Highlights of the NIAAA position paper on moderate alcohol consumption. Press release from the journal, Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, June 14, 2004; Berman, Jessica. Moderate alcohol consumption benefits heart, U.S. government says. Voice of America News, June 16, 2004.] This is important because cardiovascular disease is the number one cause of death in the United States and heart disease kills about one million Americans each and every year. [American Heart Association web site.]

The Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism wrote that “Numerous well-designed studies have concluded that moderate drinking is associated with improved cardiovascular health,” and the Nutrition Committee of the American Heart Association reported that “The lowest mortality occurs in those who consume one or two drinks per day.” [Pearson, T.A. (for the American Heart Association). Alcohol and heart disease. Circulation, 1996, 94, 3023-3025.] A World Health Organization Technical Committee on Cardiovascular Disease asserted that the relationship between moderate alcohol consumption and reduced death from heart disease can no longer be doubted. [Wilkie, S. Global overview of drinking recommendations and guidelines. AIM Digest (Supplement), June, 1997, 2-4, 4.]

  • Researchers studied volunteers in seven European countries and found that people who have a daily drink of beer, wine or distilled spirits (whiskey, rum, tequila, etc.) have significantly better arterial elasticity, a strong indicator of of heart health and cardiovascular health, than nondrinkers. Moderate drinkers also had significantly better pulse rates than those of abstainers from alcohol.
  • A study of 1,795 subjects found that “the risk of extensive coronary calcification was 50% lower in individuals who consumed one to two alcoholic drinks per day than in nondrinkers.” [Vliegenthart, R., et al. Alcohol consumption and coronary calcification in a general population. Archives of Internal Medicine, 2004 (November 22), 164, 2355-2360.]
  • Research demonstrates that moderate alcohol consumption is associated with better endothelial function, which contributes to better heart health and lowers risk of atherosclerosis and cardiovascular disease. [Suzuki, K., et al. Moderate alcohol consumption is associated with better endothelial function: a cross sectional study. BMC Cardiovasc. Discord., 2009, 9, 8.]
  • A study of over 3,000 men and women found that those who never drank alcohol were at a greater risk of having high levels of CRP and IL-6 (excellent predictors of heart attack) than were those who consumed alcoholic beverages in moderation. [Price, J.H. Light drinking lowers bad proteins. The Washington Times, February 11, 2004.]

Moderate Drinkers are Less Likely to Suffer Coronary Heart Disease and Heart Attacks (Acute Myocardial Infarctions) than are Abstainers or Heavy Drinkers.

  • A National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism review of research studies from at least 20 countries around the world demonstrate a 20- to 40-percent lower coronary heart disease (CHD) incidence among drinkers compared to nondrinkers. It asserts that “The totality of evidence on moderate alcohol and CHD supports a judgment of a cause-effect relationship… there are cardioprotective benefits associated with responsible, moderate alcohol intake.” [Hennekens, C. H. Alcohol and Risk of Coronary Events. In: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. Alcohol and the Cardiovascular System. Washington, DC: U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, 1996.]
  • Harvard researchers have identified the moderate consumption of alcohol as a proven way to reduce coronary heart disease risk.[Manson, J. E., et al. The primary prevention of myocardial infarction. The New England Journal of Medicine, 1992, 326(21), 1406-1416.]
  • A study of 18,455 males from the Physicians Health Study revealed that those originally consuming one drink per week or less who increased their consumption up to to six drinks per week had a 29% reduction in CVD risk compared to those who did not increase their consumption. Men originally consuming 1-6 drinks per week who increased their consumption moderately had an additional 15% decrease in CVD risk. [Sesso, H.D., et al. Seven -year changes in alcohol consumption and subsequent risk of cardiovascular disease in men. Archives of Internal Medicine, 2001, 160, 2505-2612.]
  • The Harvard Health Professionals Follow-Up Study of over 44,000 men found moderate alcohol consumption to be associated with a 37% reduction in coronary disease. [Rimm, E., et al. Prospective study of alcohol consumption and risk of coronary disease in men. The Lancet. 1991, 338, 464-468.]
  • A British study of women found moderate consumption of alcohol to be associated with lower levels of cardiovascular risk factors. [Razay, G., et al. Alcohol consumption and its relation to cardiovascular risk factors in British women. British Medical Journal, 1992, 304, 80-83.]
  • A study of over 5,000 women with type 2 diabetes mellitus found that coronary heart disease rates “were significantly lower in women who reported moderate alcohol intake than in those who reported drinking no alcohol.” Women who drank more than 5 grams (about one-third glass) a day reduced their risk of CHD (fatal or nonfatal) by more than half. [Solomon, C. G., et al. Moderate alcohol consumption and risk of coronary heart disease among women with type 2 diabetes mellitus. Circulation, 2000, 102, 494-499.]
  • In a study of nearly 88,000 men, researchers found that drinking reduced risk of coronary heart disease risk among both diabetics and non-diabetics. Weekly consumption of alcohol reduced CHD risk by one-third (33%) while daily consumption reduced the risk by over half (58%) among diabetics. For non-diabetics, weekly consumption reduced CHD risk by 18% while daily consumption reduced the risk by 39%. [Ajani, U. A., et al. Alcohol consumption and risk of coronary heart disease by diabetic status. Circulation, 2000, 102, 500.]
  • Light to moderate consumption of alcohol appears to reduce the risk of coronary heart disease by as much as 80% among individuals with older-onset diabetes, according to a study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association. [Valmidrid, C. T., et al. Alcohol intake and the risk of coronary heart disease mortality in persons with older-onset diabetes mellitus. Journal of the American Medical Association, 1999, 282(3), 239-246.]
  • The Honolulu Heart Study found a 49% reduction in coronary heart disease among men who drank alcohol in moderation. [Blackwelder, W. C., et al. Alcohol and mortality. The Honolulu Heart Study. American Journal of Medicine, 1980, 68(2), 164-169.]
  • Harvard researchers concluded about coronary heart disease that “Consumption of one or two drinks of beer, wine, or liquor per day has corresponded to a reduction in risk of approximately 20-40%.” [Manson, J. E., et al. Prevention of Myocardial Infarction. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996.]
  • At a scientific conference, researchers from Korea, Italy, Germany, Poland, the Netherlands, and the United States reported finding striking reductions in death among moderate drinkers, with heart disease and total mortality rates about one half or less compared to non-drinkers. [Trevisan, M., et al. Drinking pattern and mortality: a longitudinal study; Gaziano, J. M., et al. A prospective cohort study of moderate alcohol consumption and sudden death in the Physicians’ Health Study; Keil, U., et al. The relation of alcohol to coronary heart disease and total mortality in a beer drinking population in Southern Germany; Waskiewicz, A., et al. Alcohol consumption and l l-year total and CVD mortality among men in Pol-MONICA study; Grobbee, D. E., et al. Alcohol and cardiovascular risk in the elderly. All presented at the 4th International Conference on Preventive Cardiology, Montreal, Canada, June 29-July 3, 1997, and published in Abstracts from the 4th International Conference on Preventive Cardiology. The Canadian Journal of Cardiology, June, 1997, volume 13, Supplement B.]
  • After over 6,000 participants in the Framingham Heart Study were followed for a period of six to ten years, researchers found that “when consumed in moderation, alcohol appears to protect against congestive heart failure.” [Walsh, C. R., et al. Alcohol consumption and risk for congestive heart failure in the Framingham Heart Study. Annals of Internal Medicine, 2002, 136(3), 181-191.]
  • The American Heart Association, based on the research evidence, concludes that the “Consumption of one or two drinks per day is associated with a [CHD] reduction in risk of approximately 30% to 50%.” [Pearson, Thomas A. (for the American Heart Association). Alcohol and heart disease. Circulation, 1996, 94, 3023-3025.]
  • After reviewing the research, Dr. David Whitten reported that “The studies that have been done show pretty clearly that the chances of suffering cardiac death are dramatically reduced by drinking” one or two drinks a day and asserted that “We don’t have any drugs that are as good as alcohol.” [Whitten, D. Wine Institute Seminar. San Francisco, CA: 1987. Quoted in Ford, G. The French Paradox and Drinking for Health. San Francisco, CA: Wine Appreciation Guild, 1993. Pp. 26-27.]
  • Based on the medical evidence, noted investigator Dr. Curtis Ellison asserted that “abstinence from alcohol is a major risk factor for coronary heart disease.” [Vin, sante & societe. AIM, 1995, 4(2), 7-10, p. 9.]

The Moderate Consumption of Alcohol Increases the Survivability of Heart Attacks

  • Drinking alcohol in moderation throughout the year before a heart attack or acute myocardial infarction (AMI) has been found to reduce the risk of dying afterward. Moderate drinkers had the lowest mortality rate, reducing their risk by 32%, compared to abstainers. The health benefits were virtually identical for beer, distilled spirits, and wine. [Mulcamel, K.J., et al. Alcohol consumption after myocardial infarction. Journal of the American Medical Association, 2001, 285(15), 1965-1970; Alcohol and AMI: Benefits from beer, wine, and liquor. American Journal of Nursing, 2001, 101(8), 18.]
  • Men who consume two to four drinks of alcohol after a heart attack are less likely to experience a second heart attack than are abstainers, according to a study of 353 male heart attack survivors. Researchers found that men who consumed an average of two drinks of alcohol per day were 59% less likely than non-drinkers to have another heart attack. Those who drank an average of four drinks per day experienced a risk reduction of 52% compared to abstainers. [de Lorgeril, M., et al. Wine drinking and risks of cardiovascular complications after recent acute myocardial infarction. Circulation: Journal of the American Heart Association, 2002, 106, 1465-1469.]
  • Research at the University of Missouri-Columbia found that drinking alcohol (beer, wine, or distilled spirits) in moderation reduced the damage to effected tissue following a heart attack. [Dayton C, DC Gute, P Carter, and RJ Korthuis. Antecedent ethanol prevents postischemic P-selectin expression in murine small intestine. Microcirculation, 2004, 11, 709-718.]
  • A study for a five year period of over 85,000 men who had suffered previous heart attacks found that “moderate alcohol intake was associated with a significant decrease in total mortality” compared to nondrinkers. [Gaziano, J., et al. Potential mortality benefits for drinkers with previous heart attacks. The Lancet, 1998, 352, M 1882-1885.]

Alcohol Abstainers Who Begin Drinking Reduce Their Risk of Cardiovascular Disease

  • During a ten year study of 7,697 non-drinkers, investigators found that 6% began consuming alcohol in moderation. After four years of follow-up, new moderate drinkers had a 38% lower chance of developing cardiovascular disease than did those who continued abstaining. Even after adjusting for physical activity, Body Mass Index (BMI), demographic and cardiac risk factors, this difference persisted.
      
    This study is important because it provides additional strong evidence that the reduced risk of cardiovascular disease among moderate drinkers is a result of the alcohol itself rather than any differences in lifestyle, genetics, or other factors. [King, Dana E., Mainous, III, Arch G. and Geesey, Mark E. Adopting moderate alcohol consumption in middle-age: Subsequent cardiovascular events. American Journal of Medicine, 2008 (March), 121(3).]
  • A study of men with high blood pressure found that those who averaged one to six drinks per week has a 39% lower risk of death from cardiovascular causes than were abstainers. Those who averaged more (one or two drinks each day) were 44% less likely to experience such death. [Malinski, M.K., Sesso, H.D., Lopez-Jimenez, F., Buring, J.E., and Gaziano, M. Alcohol consumption and cardiovascular disease mortality in hypertensive men. Archives of Internal Medicine, 2004, 164(6), 623.]
  • Frequent Drinkers Enjoy Greater Heart-Health Benefits than Those Who Drink Less Often
    In a study of nearly 88,000 men, researchers found reductions in coronary heart disease risk with increasing frequency of drinking alcohol for both diabetics and non-diabetics. Weekly consumption of alcohol reduced CHD risk by one-third (33%) while daily consumption reduced the risk by over half (58%) among diabetics. For non-diabetics, weekly consumption reduced CHD risk by 18% while daily consumption reduced the risk by 39%. [Anani, U. A., et al. Alcohol consumption and risk of coronary heart disease by diabetes status. Circulation, 2000, 102, 500-505.]

And that’s just a sample, obviously. While this new study is interesting, and I’m looking forward to learning more about the rs1229984 variant in the alcohol dehydrogenase 1B gene (ADH1B), it’s seems more than a little premature to throw out everything that’s come before it. But back to ADH1B. How many people have that gene variant. How can people know if they have it? Although curiously, it’s mentioned in passing that people with the gene variant are also slightly more likely to smoke. Doesn’t it seem at least as likely that the while the gene variant may have a positive effect on heart health, that not having ADH1B isn’t automatically a negative, but the norm? Without knowing the percentage of the population that has this gene variant, it seems odd to me that the conclusion is that the rest of us are somehow negatively impacted by not having what’s by definition a mutation. If having it is good for your heart, can it be synthesized?

Also, in their conclusions, they found that people with the ADH1B gene variant, in addition to drinking less, also “exhibited lower levels of blood pressure, inflammatory biomarkers, adiposity measures, and non-HDL cholesterol,” which could also be contributing to their heart health, couldn’t they? The most confounding conclusion, that simply because they used mendelian randomisation “that reduction of alcohol consumption, even for light to moderate drinkers, is beneficial for cardiovascular health” I confess I don’t fully understand. Not being a scientist, and not having come across mendelian randomisation before, I don’t fully understand how it can provide results that are so certain, despite it apparently being prone to misleading conclusions from “linkage disequilibrium, genetic heterogeneity, pleiotropy, or population stratification” or any of the biases or problems that you’d have with any study. Almost every preliminary study, or whenever one is the first of its kind, the researchers are always careful not to make too much of their results. They always caution people from drawing too many conclusions and usually state that further research is necessary to confirm or invalidate their findings. That’s how the scientific method is supposed to work, I always thought. But in this instance, one study is being touted as the be all, end all in understanding the relationship between alcohol and your heart. That seems very strange to me. Maybe that’s my ignorance, but neither the press release nor the news report on the study has done anything to clear it up. Considering that those are aimed at the general public, that seems like a big failure. But it certainly makes it easier for Alcohol Justice to jump in and claim victory that alcohol is now completely bad for everyone, no exceptions, despite society having endured quite well since the dawn of time with alcohol playing a fairly prominent role.

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Craft Beer Continues To Grow

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Craft brewers enjoyed continued growth through the first half of 2014, according to new mid-year data recently released by the Brewers Association, the trade group representing smaller brewers. Craft beer production increased 18 percent by volume during the first half of the year (though the new numbers are based on the revised definition of who is a craft brewer as per the BA, while last year’s numbers were compiled under the old definition). From the press release:

From January through the end of June, around 10.6 million barrels of beer were sold, up from 9.0 million barrels over the first half of 2013. “The sustained double-digit growth of the craft category shows the solidity of demand for fuller flavored beer in a variety of styles from small and independent American producers,” said Bart Watson, chief economist for the BA. “Craft brewers are providing world-class, innovative products that continue to excite beer lovers and energize the industry.”

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As of June 30, 2014, 3,040 breweries were operating in the U.S., 99 percent of which were small and independent craft breweries. Additionally, there were 1,929 breweries in planning. Craft brewers currently employ an estimated 110,273 full-time and part-time workers, many of which are manufacturing jobs, contributing significantly to the U.S. economy.

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The Most Consumed Alcoholic Beverages by Country

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Here’s an interesting chart showing the alcoholic beverage that has the highest consumption in each country of the world, based on data from 2011, as far as I can tell. The data is based on liters of pure alcohol.


via chartsbin.com

Key findings from the report:

  • More than 45% of total recorded alcohol is consumed in the form of spirits, predominantly in the South-East Asia and Western Pacific.
  • Approximately 36% of total recorded alcohol is consumed in the form of beer. Beer consumption is highest in the Region of the Americas.
  • Commonly, high overall consumption levels are found in countries such as the Russian Federation, which display both high beer and high spirits consumption.
  • Consumption of wine as a percentage of total recorded alcohol is globally quite low (8.6%), with significant levels of alcohol consumed in the form of wine in the European Region (26.4%).
  • Beverages other than beer, spirits and wine (e.g. fortified wines, rice wine or other fermented beverages made of sorghum, millet, maize) have the highest share in total recorded consumption in the African Region (48.2%), and in the Eastern Mediterranean Region (31.3%).

Most consumed alcoholic beverages in terms of liters of pure alcohol, which do not necessarily reflect that the overall level of consumption of this alcoholic beverage is high.For example in India, spirits are the most consumed alcoholic beverages, but this does not mean that the consumption level of spirits is high, but that the proportion of total alcohol consumed in the form of spirits is high.

Note:

Beer: includes malt beers.
Wine: includes wine made from grapes.
Spirits: include all distilled beverages.
Other Alcohol: includes one or several other alcoholic beverages, such as fermented beverages made from sorghum, maize, millet, rice, or cider, fruit wine, fortified wine, etc.

Another Milestone: 3,000 Breweries In America

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I know that many people seem tired of celebrating numerical achievements, preferring to concentrate on the beer itself, or the quality of beers, etc., but I think there is something to be said for the continuing rise of the sheer number of breweries in America. It is, I believe, indicative of greater consumer acceptance and a desire for beer drinkers to want to support local producers. It’s true that the growth of the regional, larger breweries are fueling a lot of the marketshare, but with many of the new small breweries catering to a very local customer base, this growth phase we’re in shouldn’t slow down for a least a little while longer.

Yesterday, the Brewers Association announced that the number of breweries in the United States eclipsed 3,000, as of June 2014 stood at 3,040. Here’s more from the BA’s press release:

The American brewing industry reached another milestone at the end of June, with more than 3,000 breweries operating for all or part of the month (3,040 to be precise). Although precise numbers from the 19th century are difficult to confirm, this is likely the first time the United States has crossed the 3,000 brewery barrier since the 1870s. Wieren (1995) notes that the Internal Revenue Department counted 2,830 “ale and lager breweries in operation” in 1880, down from a high point of 4,131 in 1873.

What does 3,000 breweries mean? For one, it represents a return to the localization of beer production, with almost 99% of the 3,040 breweries being small and independent. The majority of Americans live within 10 miles of a local brewery, and with almost 2,000 planning breweries in the BA database, that percentage is only going to climb in the coming years.

Secondly, it means that competition continues to increase, and that brewers will need to further differentiate and focus on quality if they are going to succeed in a crowded marketplace. While a national brewery number is fairly irrelevant without understanding local marketplaces, 3,040 breweries could not happen without increased competition in many localities.

What it does not mean is that we’ve reached a saturation point. Most of the new entrants continue to be small and local, operating in neighborhoods or towns. What it means to be a brewery is shifting, back toward an era when breweries were largely local, and operated as a neighborhood bar or restaurant. How many neighborhoods in the country could still stand to gain from a high-quality brewpub or micro taproom? While a return to the per capita ratio of 1873 seems unlikely (that would mean more than 30,000 breweries), the resurgence of American brewing is far from over.

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Beer Outmaneuvering Wine

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Here’s some interesting news from the wine world, h/t to Jenn Litz from Craft Business Daily. Charles Gill, who runs Wine Metrics, which creates “on-premise wine distribution information in the U.S. market.” According to Litz, Gill has been saying lately that he believes that craft beer is taking market share from wine, which is curious, because “trade show rhetoric has often been the exact opposite.”

On Gill’s blog, Wine List USA, he claims that Craft Beer is Outmaneuvering Wine, and lists ten ways in which he believes that’s happening. Here’s his raw list.

  1. Value
  2. Innovation
  3. Promotion
  4. Community
  5. Venues
  6. Cross-Fertilization
  7. New Traditions
  8. Customer Loyalty
  9. Food Compatibility
  10. Gatekeepers

For a better understanding of that list, read his explanations for each one at the source, 10 Ways Craft Beer is Outmaneuvering Wine. I don’t tend to think about wine and beer as an us versus them proposition, but obviously the pie that is all alcohol consumption is divided into wedges of how much is spent on each type. There’s no getting around it. If more people buy beer, something else isn’t doing as well. It’s theoretically possible that the pie is just growing and people are buying more beer, but are not buying less wine, spirits, cider or what have you, but that’s not exactly realistic. If anything, the pie’s been shrinking, sad to say, as people are drinking less overall than they used to.

As to Gill’s list, I definitely agree with Value, Innovation and some of the Community aspects he mentions. And I also think Food Compatibility and most of what he says about New Traditions ring true, but I’m less convinced by the others. Do you agree? Or Disagree? If, so why, and to which ones?

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The Mythical Monolith Of Big Alcohol

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Since the end of February, Alcohol Justice (AJ) has been tweeting the following:

Big Alcohol will never admit #3 http://bit.ly/1mFY39E Alcohol classified carcinogenic 25 years ago

It’s part of their new series of things that “Big Alcohol will never admit.” I think somebody forgot to tell AJ that there’s no actual organization “Big Alcohol,” no single entity that speaks with one voice on all matters alcoholic.

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The mythical monolith of “Big Alcohol” that doesn’t actually exist, but which Alcohol Justice believes should respond to their propaganda demands.

But let’s take a look at what we’re accused of this time. According to AJ, 25 years ago Alcohol was classified as a “carcinogenic.” That tidbit comes from their Alcohol and Cancer Risk “fact sheet” which states. “The International Agency for Research on Cancer (IARC) has classified beverage alcohol as a Group 1 (cancerous to humans) carcinogen since 1988.” That statement is footnoted by two studies. The first is the IARC Monographs on the Evaluation of Carcinogenic Risks to Humans VOLUME 96 Alcohol Consumption and Ethyl Carbamate and the second is Volume 100E A Review of Human Carcinogens: Personal Habits and Indoor Combustions (2012). And those two documents do indeed state that they “concluded that there was sufficient evidence of carcinogenicity for cancers of the oral cavity, pharynx, larynx, oesophagus and liver.” But is that the whole story? Hardly. Since that time, they’ve added colorectal and female breast cancer for a total of seven types of cancer, out of how many different types? Dozens? Hundreds? And for at least a few of those, moderate alcohol consumption reduces risk and for most of the rest is neutral, meaning there’s little or no effect. But AJ also claims that “Big Alcohol” has been somehow denying this for the past 26 years. How exactly has anyone been denying it?

But another questionable exaggeration is this, from AJ’s press release of February 26 of this year, where they attempt to take a position that the moderate consumption of alcohol is also unsafe.

While heavy drinking presents the greatest risk, daily alcohol consumption of as little as 1.5 drinks accounts for up to 35% of alcohol-attributable cancer deaths in the United States. Added [Director of Research Sarah] Mart, “The research is clear: There is no determined safe limit for alcohol consumption with regard to cancer risk.”

But that’s at least a little misleading. That claim comes from a 2013 study in the American Journal of Public Health entitled Alcohol-Attributable Cancer Deaths and Years of Potential Life Lost in the United States. Here’s the relevant bit from the results, in the abstract.

Alcohol consumption resulted in an estimated 18,200 to 21,300 cancer deaths, or 3.2% to 3.7% of all US cancer deaths. The majority of alcohol-attributable female cancer deaths were from breast cancer (56% to 66%), whereas upper airway and esophageal cancer deaths were more common among men (53% to 71%). Alcohol-attributable cancers resulted in 17.0 to 19.1 YPLL for each death. Daily consumption of up to 20 grams of alcohol (≤ 1.5 drinks) accounted for 26% to 35% of alcohol-attributable cancer deaths.

Although they exaggerated the findings by saying “Up to 35%” instead of “26% to 35%,” which is a typical propaganda tactic, what that one study really found is that 26% to 35% of 3.2% to 3.7% of all US cancer deaths may have come from moderate drinking. Put another way, 0.83% to 1.295% of all U.S. cancers may be attributable to people who drank moderately. From that, AJ concludes that “The research is clear: There is no determined safe limit for alcohol consumption with regard to cancer risk.” If you think that’s clear, keep making those donations, because it makes no logical sense. Less than 1% of all cancer deaths up to as many as 1.3% may be attributable to moderate alcohol consumption, and that constitutes clear causation, ignoring all other factors, such as genetics, environment, and lifestyle.

The study itself claims that there’s “no safe threshold for alcohol and cancer risk” despite it representing only around one percent of all cancers in the United States. Not to mention, when you dig deeper into the data, that particular study is only examining six types of cancer. They ignore all other cancers, while still making sweeping pronouncements about cancer, and ignoring any mitigating benefits of moderate alcohol consumption, including the rather hard-to-ignore total mortality.

Here’s what I don’t understand about calling alcohol a carcinogen. If indeed it increases the risk for certain types of cancers, but not others, it seems to me it would have to increase the risk to all persons (or even most) for all cancers to be considered to show “sufficient evidence in humans for the carcinogenicity of alcohol consumption.” My sense in reading through WHO literature over the years is that their mission is more about stopping people from drinking because as an organization they’re convinced that alcohol is always bad and has no positive aspects or benefits. When you only look for negative consequences, that’s all you find.

What AJ, WHO and many of these studies do is start with a premise and try to prove it, ending up cherry-picking the studies that support it and ignoring any that don’t. That creates a powerful propaganda tool but rarely stands up to any scrutiny. Luckily, as prohibitionist groups are well aware, few subject their propaganda masquerading as press releases to much, if any, scrutiny whatsoever. So their incentive to be more truthful is practically nil. So they can just make up whatever they want, like the mythical monolith of Big Alcohol, and then wonder why they won’t admit whatever prohibitionists says, no matter how twisted or distorted.

Beverage Industry’s State Of American Beer Report

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The Atlantic magazine had a good round-up of the State of American Beer, based on a report from the trade publication Beverage Industry. Beverage Industry’s March issue had a series of articles on different segments, including Craft brewers’ sales growth continues, Domestic beer case sales decline, Mexican beers dominate imported beer growth and Hard cider draws in consumers from outside the beer category. In addition, at the same time they released a separate report, the 2014 U.S. Beer Category Report.

You could spend the time to read through all of them (and I’d encourage you to do so) but to get an overview of the reports, The Atlantic’s coverage provides the highlights (and even does a better job with the charts). For example, here’s the top craft brands from 2013.

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And here’s case sales by brand in a piechart.

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And this last one, the percentage change in case sales, is amazing because is shows just how fast Lagunitas is growing, though Stone’s doing pretty well on the growth front, too.

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Top 50 Breweries For 2013

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The Brewers Association has also just announced the top 50 breweries in the U.S. based on sales, by volume, for 2013. This includes all breweries, regardless of size or other parameters. Here is the new list:
ba-top-50-breweries-2013

Here is this year’s press release.

Not too much movement again this year, except for a few small shufflings, and no changes at all in the top ten. Only three new breweries made the list; Ballast Point, Narragansett (which had been on the year before in 2011) and Left Hand Brewing.

For the past six years, I’ve also posted an annotated list, showing the changes in each brewery’s rank from year to year. This year, the BA thoughtfully has already done that, saving me a lot of time and math. If you want to see the previous annotated lists for comparison, here is 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009, 2008, 2007 and 2006.