I don't like hoppy beer. Is that good?
I don't like hoppy beer. Is that good?
I'm not sure exactly where I first read this, on the One Angry Gamer comments section before it was shut down, or over on the old Voat - whatever the case, it was pretty eye-opening when I saw it.
German beer makers noticed long ago that the young women who picked hops in the fields commonly experienced early menstrual periods. Hop pickers in the field would often fall asleep on the job. Female children would begin menstruation much earlier when working in the hop fields.
Eventually, researchers discovered the reason – hops is perhaps one of the most powerfully estrogenic plants on Earth. Just 100 grams of hops (about 3.5 ounces) contains anywhere from thirty thousand to three hundred thousand IUs of estrogen, depending on the type of hops. Most of it is the very potent estrogen estradiol. Estradiol, as it is taken into the male body, causes a direct lowering of testosterone levels in the testes and an increase in SHBG levels, which then binds up even more free testosterone in the bloodstream. The estradiol in hops has also been found to directly interfere with the ability of the testes Leydig cells to produce testosterone. The presence of this highly estrogenic substance in beer is not an accident.
Prior to the German Beer Purity Act of 1516, beer almost never contained hops. In fact, more than one hundred different plants were used in brewing beer for at least ten thousand years prior to the introduction of hops in the middle ages.
For the last thousand years of that period, the most dominant form of "beer" was called gruit, which contained a mixture of yarrow, bog myrtle, and marsh rosemary. These herbs, especially in beer, are sexually and mentally stimulating. (It is rare to become sleepy when drinking un-hopped beers.)
The Catholic Church had a monopoly on the production of gruit, but competing (((merchants))) and the Protestants worked together to break their monopoly and force the removal of all sexually stimulating herbs from beer. They replaced them with an herb that puts the drinker to sleep and dulls sexual drive in the male.
I'm not sure exactly where I first read this, on the One Angry Gamer comments section before it was shut down, or over on the old Voat - whatever the case, it was pretty eye-opening when I saw it.
>German beer makers noticed long ago that the young women who picked hops in the fields commonly experienced early menstrual periods. Hop pickers in the field would often fall asleep on the job. Female children would begin menstruation much earlier when working in the hop fields.
>Eventually, researchers discovered the reason – hops is perhaps one of the most powerfully estrogenic plants on Earth. Just 100 grams of hops (about 3.5 ounces) contains anywhere from thirty thousand to three hundred thousand IUs of estrogen, depending on the type of hops. Most of it is the very potent estrogen estradiol. Estradiol, as it is taken into the male body, causes a direct lowering of testosterone levels in the testes and an increase in SHBG levels, which then binds up even more free testosterone in the bloodstream. The estradiol in hops has also been found to directly interfere with the ability of the testes Leydig cells to produce testosterone. The presence of this highly estrogenic substance in beer is not an accident.
>Prior to the German Beer Purity Act of 1516, beer almost never contained hops. In fact, more than one hundred different plants were used in brewing beer for at least ten thousand years prior to the introduction of hops in the middle ages.
>For the last thousand years of that period, the most dominant form of "beer" was called gruit, which contained a mixture of yarrow, bog myrtle, and marsh rosemary. These herbs, especially in beer, are sexually and mentally stimulating. (It is rare to become sleepy when drinking un-hopped beers.)
>The Catholic Church had a monopoly on the production of gruit, but competing (((merchants))) and the Protestants worked together to break their monopoly and force the removal of all sexually stimulating herbs from beer. They replaced them with an herb that puts the drinker to sleep and dulls sexual drive in the male.
(post is archived)