Have you ever heard comedian Pablo Francisco say “I love spaguetti, but it’s got s%#t in it…”?
Well that’s kind of how I felt after geeking out on hops a bit over the last few days…
I love hoppy beers… especially IPA’s… and although I tend to say I don’t have a favorite style, I find myself brewing and drinking IPA’s more often than not…
… but that’s about to change…
See, it turns out that hops are one of the most powerful estrogenic plants on Earth!!! That means it can significantly impact the balance of male testosterone vs estrogen levels!
It can also inhibit sexual strength in men… lead to man-boobs?
I’m not a doctor or anything, but I heard consumption of hops should be excluded during all androgen replacement therapy for the same reason…
Apparently it was common for young women who worked the fields picking hops to experience early menstrual periods…
So what now?
I love IPA’s, but it’s got s#%t in it!
Well, I am young and have no need for the blue pill… thank god… and I’m glad I’m learning about this early enough considering I love hops… (though now I feel like a kid who is just learning that the tooth fairy isn’t real)…
Before the Reinheitsgebot of 1516, hops weren’t even that common in beer… you had traditional Ales (unhopped beer) and gruit beer or gruut from medieval Flemish/Dutch…
The original gruit beer is believed to have contained a mixture of yarrow, bog myrtle and wild rosemary… the problem with these ingredients is that they can be toxic if used in large amounts…
… and that lead me to do a bit more research on the topic…
… if you are looking for an interesting read on the history of beer, this topic is definitely a good one…
On one hand, there is the story that says that hops were introduced as a way to break the monopoly that the Catholic church had on gruit beers… they kept their recipes secret – which is why recipes are guesses as to how they were brewed – and since you could only buy through the church, they inflated the prices…
The other side of the story is that the ingredients traditionally used in gruit ales were somewhat hypnotic and could give you a “different type” of buzz… and I guess increase sexual desire in men… some religions were not okay with that and that’s why the promotion of hops began… to remove stimulating effects from beer and dull the sex drive of manly men (now I have the song from Two and a Half Men stuck in my head)…
Anyways…
I guess a third version is that hops were promoted as the best ingredient to season beer because it contained the bittering and aromatic properties all in one herb… and making hops the only seasoning ingredient of beer made it easier to collect taxes…
I’m not a historian or anything, but all these stories are interesting to read about and the fact remains that maybe drinking hoppy beers often is not good for men…
Will I stop drinking hopped beers?
Probably not…
… but I will start to explore hopless beers, gruits and other ‘real ales’ until I can be sure my T-levels won’t be affected by a couple hoppy beers here and there…
So much for being a self-declared hophead… grrrr…
I’d like to see how this correlates with another topic that I read about in Tim Ferris’s book The 4-Hour Body… basically it said “Sperm count of men in the United States and other industrialized countries has been falling since 1942 at a rate of 1% per year in healthy males”…
Hmmm… wonder if these countries are heavy hopped beer consumers?
Maybe all the theories on population control and NWO are true afterall… maybe big pharma doesn’t want you to know so they can keep rakin’ in on all the impotence drugs…
Don’t know, but for now I guess if you need help going to sleep, going to the bathroom or going through menopause… well ask your doctor if drinking hops is good for you…
Cheers!
PS Save manhood!!! Share and start asking your local micro-brewery to start including some gruits in their menus!!!
Then again, since I still drink IPA’s, I personally started researching testosterone just in case…
Sources:
http://www.projectavalon.net/forum/archive/index.php/t-2177.html
http://www.gruitale.com/art_treatise_on_brewing.htm
http://briancendrowski.hoppress.com/2010/07/16/gruit-beer-gone-hopless/
6 replies to "Silly Boys IPA's are for Girls!"
Now that was an interesting and alarming post. Perhaps I should get my testosterone levils checked. I have been hitting the john a bit much. Damn.
Good news is that you can still make beer without hops… and a few IPA’s here and there shouldn’t affect you much…
My daughter who is studying herbs told me about it awhile ago.
Yeah, I didn’t realize hops were a common herb used for various treatments…
Hops were used primarily to inhibit bacterial infections in Ales. They acted more as a preservative than anything else, preventing spoilage over the long voyages from Europe to India during the height of the Spice trade (East India Trading Co.) Of the 1700s. If you want to worry about the small amounts of estrogen that survive the boiling process go ahead but I’d be more concerned about Soy based food products. Soy is Far and Away higher in Estrogen than Hops are. I think the higher rate of consumption of manufactured/processed foods (most of which have Soy flour or oils in them) is most likely the culprit here of the lower sperm counts you speak of.
Yes Todd I agree with hops being used as a preservative and soy being more estrogenic. While hops were used as a preservative, they are usually used in conjunction with higher levels of alcohol. It’s not just IPAs, but all export beers. IPAs just happen to use easy more hops.
I haven’t heard of boiling removing the estrogenic component of hops. Thanks I’ll look that up. I should remind you though, most IPAs are dry hopped or use hop additions post boil.
I am not worried, but I like to research and understand various points of view. Yours has been appreciated, cheers!!