Beer : Health and Nutrition

7 Conclusion
Beer-drinking is a cultural phenomenon, spanning the whole spectrum from absolute
abstention to the drinking ritual. It can comprise an integral and prized part of the very
fabric of life, for example in the Czech Republic or within the tribes of the Kofyar or
Tiriki. Elsewhere it represents a growing trend, such as in China where economic and
physiological factors will most likely self-regulate the rate of growth.
Surely beer is a very metaphor for the toleration of other cultures?
For a vast part of society’s history, and in a great number of countries, beer has been
a staple part of the diet, more so than any other alcoholic beverage. It is the drink of
moderation for the general classes.
For the longest time ale was an integral contributor to the nutrition of the masses,
young and old. It would be idiosyncratic today to champion beer as still being the cheapest
and most appropriate source of key ingredients of the diet, especially for the young.
However, the point needs to be stressed that brewers have not digressed from, but rather
continuously improved, their practices in respect of selection of the best raw materials
and adoption of the most consistent and reliable brewing procedures. Beer has never been
more wholesome. Indeed, the progressive shift towards ever more hygienic operating
protocols means that beer has never been so consistently good in every respect. Thus it
still does add to the dietary intake of useful materials, even though for many it is more
frequently regarded as an item purchased for its hedonic and social attributes.
Taken to excess, of course, any alcoholic beverage presents adverse and negative
impacts, which are focused upon by those who would, in the extreme, ban the sale of
alcoholic beverages or at least tax them so as to make them prohibitively expensive.
The latter approach is surely ill conceived, insofar as beer is still very much the ‘drink
of the masses’ and the vast majority of those who buy and consume it do not present
a risk either to society or to themselves. And those who would advocate this type of
solution to the supposed disease of alcoholism are surely naive in their supposition that
simply by raising the cost the addictive pressures will be held at bay. If they genuinely
believe that this is a solution, then what better argument can there be that there is no
physiological basis for addiction to alcohol?
There is still no unequivocal answer to the question of whether alcoholism is anything
other than an addictive tendency to be listed alongside the many others that humankind
is subject to. The search for a genetic basis for the ‘disease’ continues – it will be