Backgrounder: The Battle Of The Beers
The “Alcohol Harm Reduction Study” enters into the alcohol harm reduction debate by empirically testing whether a sample of young beer drinkers report differences in subjective levels of enjoyment and intoxication when given moderate amounts of unmarked low alcohol beer (3.8 per cent) compared with regular strength beer (5.3 per cent) on two separate occasions.
The study was conducted between August and October 2006 at the University of Victoria. The 34 participants were all volunteers ― male students from UVic who reported drinking five or more beers in one day at least once in the last month. In each drinking session, small groups of between six and 10 students consumed two glasses of beer while playing dominoes.
Each subject attended two drinking sessions where they were given two beers and some pizza—but a different strength beer each time. At each drinking session half the subjects were given the 3.8 per cent beer and the other half the 5.3 per cent beer. Standard measures were used of subjective intoxication, enjoyment and mood.
Blood alcohol levels (BAC) were tested before, during and after drinking. Although significantly higher blood alcohol levels were obtained with the higher strength beer, almost half the participants could not tell the difference between the two strengths and they reported no differences in enjoyment of the occasion or perceived intoxication. There was, however, a small difference in terms of preferring the taste of the 5.3 per cent beer.
While the sample size was relatively small, the experimental design, had adequate statistical power to detect significant changes in the outcome measures. Lower BAC levels have real life implications as lower alcohol in the blood means less long term adverse affects and lower chances of injury while drinking.
The study was funded by UVic’s Centre for Addiction Research (CARBC), and the low alcohol beer was donated by the Victoria-based Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub and GuestHouses in Victoria. Spinnakers is one of the few Canadian microbreweries that makes a lower alcohol beer.
“We recommend these findings be used in devising alcohol taxation policy and other strategies that might create incentives for the manufacture, marketing and consumption of low alcohol alternatives,” says Dave Segal, a CARBC research assistant and UVic child and youth care graduate student. “Following the experience of such incentives being introduced in Australia over two decades ago, such an initiative would provide the impetus for brewers to create a broader range of higher quality and better tasting varieties of low alcohol beer.”
To view the executive summary of Segal’s study go to http://carbc.ca/.
< Back to ReleaseThe study was conducted between August and October 2006 at the University of Victoria. The 34 participants were all volunteers ― male students from UVic who reported drinking five or more beers in one day at least once in the last month. In each drinking session, small groups of between six and 10 students consumed two glasses of beer while playing dominoes.
Each subject attended two drinking sessions where they were given two beers and some pizza—but a different strength beer each time. At each drinking session half the subjects were given the 3.8 per cent beer and the other half the 5.3 per cent beer. Standard measures were used of subjective intoxication, enjoyment and mood.
Blood alcohol levels (BAC) were tested before, during and after drinking. Although significantly higher blood alcohol levels were obtained with the higher strength beer, almost half the participants could not tell the difference between the two strengths and they reported no differences in enjoyment of the occasion or perceived intoxication. There was, however, a small difference in terms of preferring the taste of the 5.3 per cent beer.
While the sample size was relatively small, the experimental design, had adequate statistical power to detect significant changes in the outcome measures. Lower BAC levels have real life implications as lower alcohol in the blood means less long term adverse affects and lower chances of injury while drinking.
The study was funded by UVic’s Centre for Addiction Research (CARBC), and the low alcohol beer was donated by the Victoria-based Spinnakers Gastro Brewpub and GuestHouses in Victoria. Spinnakers is one of the few Canadian microbreweries that makes a lower alcohol beer.
“We recommend these findings be used in devising alcohol taxation policy and other strategies that might create incentives for the manufacture, marketing and consumption of low alcohol alternatives,” says Dave Segal, a CARBC research assistant and UVic child and youth care graduate student. “Following the experience of such incentives being introduced in Australia over two decades ago, such an initiative would provide the impetus for brewers to create a broader range of higher quality and better tasting varieties of low alcohol beer.”
To view the executive summary of Segal’s study go to http://carbc.ca/.