The Difference Between Beers

Have you ever noticed you can drink two or three 4% beers and barely feel it? But if you drink two or three 5% beers, you're totally wasted?  Obviously it's because there's more alcohol. But why does that extra 1% seem to get you so much more drunk? Here comes... science!

According to LifeHacker, it's because the average person can only process one unit of alcohol per hour. A "unit" is 10 milliliters, and a 4% beer has 1.4 units. So if you drink one 4% beer and your body can only process one unit, that means there are still 0.4 units of alcohol left over in your system after one hour, because 1.4 units minus 1 unit equals 0.4. Got it? Math. Who knew. Now...

Then say you have another beer the next hour. Your body can still only process 1 unit. So after the second hour, you end up with 0.8 units of alcohol in your system.  Now, a 5% beer has 1.8 units of alcohol, exactly 0.4 more than a 4% beer. That doesn't sound like that much. But if you do the math again, you end up accumulating 0.8 units of alcohol per hour. And after two hours, it's up to 1.6.

So even though 5% beer only has 25% more alcohol than 4% does, you end up with twice as much booze in your system. And if you drink beer with an even higher alcohol content, it goes up exponentially.  Think about 7% Hard Cider! Oh boy!

If you want to have some fun with us and test out my math, Binghamton Harvest Fest is fast approaching!

Advance sale tickets are available at BinghamtonHarvestFest.com! This party is under the tents at NYSEG Stadium Parking Lot on Saturday September 19th from 1-7pm featuring America’s fall harvest foods, live music, and tons of America’s best craft beers for purchase and include some of NY’s best hard ciders.

Source: Lifehacker