Live data from Hacker News

Alcohol without the hangover – scientists are finding ways

wsj.com

21–30 of 297 posts

Re: Alcohol without the hangover – scientists are finding ways

#23
The (main) problem with alcohol-free 'beer'/'wine'/etc. isn't the lack of drunkenness feeling?

Especially beer has improved a lot but it's not there yet, I don't see how developing synthetic 'alcohol' will help when we still can't remove, or make the drink without causing, real alcohol?

As for hormone shots to treat an already acquired hangover... It seems niche/less than ideal - I don't think many people would want that as a regular expected thing, 'I am going to drink heavily and then take a hormone shot in the morning' sort of thing? And isn't it a solved ('banana bag') problem? Or is it the idea that you could buy injectable hormones for home use whereas you can't (and probably shouldn't want to) self-cannulate at home, and that's the only way(?) banana bags can work (because it takes more than reasonably fits in a syringe? Needs to be administered at a more gradual flow?)?

Personally I hope we find a way to remove alcohol without impacting taste at all, and then you can buy either version of the same drinks. I'd probably still get both, I do acknowledge the alcohol plays some role in me enjoying the drinks, but I can imagine having say an alcoholic pint or two, then alcohol-free. Or an alcoholic gin & tonic followed by AF wine. But until it's as good...

Re: Alcohol without the hangover – scientists are finding ways

#24

I love my IPAs but I have to admit that the UK does social beer right. 3% or even 2.5% ales are the way to go if you want to socially drink. We have a concept of a "session" beer in the US, which is lower ABV but the selection of really good, really low gravity beers is the best in the UK as far as I can tell.

> 3% or even 2.5% ales

I am not familiar with those, can someone give some examples of these types of beers?

Re: Alcohol without the hangover – scientists are finding ways

#26
post #18

Looks like a rebranding of GHB

I think you're right. I've always wondered why they don't water down GHB to be the equivalent of a low ABV drink. The only scary thing about GHB is its relative potency to volume. It's honestly a wonderful drug.

Re: Alcohol without the hangover – scientists are finding ways

#28
post #9
post #7

Wasn't synthetic alcohol part of the Star Trek mythos? It's been a long time since I've watched TNG but I seem to remember it was part of their world, at one point I have a vague memory of someone handing Picard a bottle of 'real' alcohol and him being amazed- 'this is the real stuff??' he asks? Or something to that effect. Maybe that's what Guinan was always serving at the Enterprise 'bar', synthetic alcohol. (Does…

Synthehol. It’s never really fully explained how it affects you other than you can kind of readily shake it off. There are plenty of instances in Star Trek of people drinking the real stuff though. Picard himself had a family winery. I’m guessing he was amazed at a bottle of Romulan Ale, which was illegal in the same way Cuban cigars were here.

In the show, Romulan Ale is also extremely strong; Worf nurses a hangover from it and says it "should be illegal" and LaForge replies "It is"; while in DS9 several of the human main cast infiltrated a Klingon event and had to take something to avoid dying from drinking so much Blood Wine.

(That said, I don't know if it's been canonically stated Blood Wine is ethanol based, so future writers might just decide that's because Blood Wine is based on methanol rather than ethanol, and the ABV is unsurprising…)

Re: Alcohol without the hangover – scientists are finding ways

#29

I've switched to alcohol free beers. They're a bit sweeter but for me it's fine.

Likewise! I'm trying not to drink much anymore. But I always want something cold and fizzy. So it's a switch between refrigerated carafes of water, seltzer, and zero-alcohol beers. Although I feel incentivized not to have even the zero-alcohol beers since it's still 60 calories. While the seltzers I find are 0.

Any beer recommendations? I haven't tried much outside of the locally-supplied zero-alcohol Heineken and Corona.

Post reply on HN