The "P" in your IPA
No, no, no. Not what the "P" in an IPA stands for. Everybody knows it stands for Pale, though perhaps many don't know how that IPA name was acquired. But that's a subject for another day. I'm talking a bout "P" as in, well, pee.
Unless you come from an aboriginal jungle tribe, you must have heard the common phrase, "renting a beer." It stems from the rapidity with which the nectar of the Sumerian gods courses through your system, and it's why every outdoor beer festival worth attending has plenty of porta-potties at the ready.
It's an undisputed fact: beer makes us go. The main reason, of course, is that it's ninety percent water, and what goes in must come out. As I explain to the missus when she says I must drink more water, "I do drink water. Mine just gets run through a brewery first."
But another reason, perhaps just as significant, is that one of beer's most important ingredients is a well-known diuretic: hops. And there are over 170 varieties of them.
in researching this piece, my goal was to find out if there existed such a thing as a diuretic "scale" and where specific hop varieties stood on it. Were certain hops more diuretic than others? Could a beer drinker control his frequency by simply avoiding those hops which were highly diuretic?
Sad to say that despite diligent searching, I have been unsuccessful so far in making a determination. They're all diuretic. I suppose I'll have to have a conversation with my buddy, Dr. Brian Lank to find out more about it. (Over a few beers, of course.)
And the reason I wanted to know was because I noticed that certain beers had a noticeable effect on my own, um, "frequency," especially in the middle of the night, and other beers did not. It couldn't be the water, so it had to be something in the ingredients, and hops looked like the most promising "ingredient of interest." Might I find a hop variety that could help me to pull consistent "all-nighters," if you catch my drift?
But though my search has been fruitless so far, I did manage to learn some amazing things about what King Henry VIII supposedly called a "wicked and pernicious weed" (yes, that's where the famous Asheville brewery gets its name) and that King George III himself may have slept on a pillow full of hops to sleep better.
But this botanical cousin to cannabis has some truly outstanding credentials, if you're interested. Witness what Nyomi Graef says hops can do:
improve the quality of sleep, and help people get to and stay asleep,
calm us down, improve digestion, relieve pain, are antibacterial (kill bacteria), are antifungal (kill fungus), are antihistamines (reduce the release of the chemical histamine in the body, which is especially useful to treat allergies), are antiseptic (prevent infection) are antispasmodic (relieve muscle spasms) , are anti-inflammatory (reduce inflammation) and are diuretic (help get rid of excess water in the body) .
Pretty impressive for a "wicked weed." But there's more, according to Graef: [Taken] Internally (by mouth) hops has been used for many things including:
insomnia (sleeplessness) and other sleep problems, anxiety, restlessness,
stress and tension, irritability, attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD),
digestive problems, such as stomach infections, diarrhea, indigestion, irritable bowel syndrome (IBS), ulcers, ulcerative colitis and Crohn’s disease
aches and pains, such as period pain, nerve pain, earaches, headaches and toothaches, colds, fever, inflammation, muscle tension, spasms, fluid retention, some cancers, kidney and bladder infections, high cholesterol,
starting the flow of breast milk, worms, jaundice, dysentery, leprosy (!) and
tuberculosis
Now, prudence demands that you investigate further and check with your own doctor before investing in a hop farm, self-medicating or starting your own backyard hop crop. Here are some sites to check out for more information:
So there we are. As so often happens with a journey of discovery, we wind up discovering something we hadn't intended to find. And in this case, it appears that hops are anything but a wicked weed.
Though getting up four times in a night to go because it's a diuretic does qualify as pernicious in my book.
Cheers!
The PubScout--since 1996
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