To beer or not to beer?

Question

Sort out a disagreement. I say if you are totally dehydrated, drinking a beer would bee better than drinking nothing at all. My mates say its better not to drink the beer. Surely the water in the beer would far out weight the de hydrating properties of the alcohol

Answer 1

Beer is mainly water, so yes, drinking a beer is better than not drinking anything. Too many beers will cause you to become even more dehydrated, but one or two will help to rehydrate you a bit.

Answer 2

This is from intelihealth.com:

"Effects of Alcohol

If you drink a bottle of beer instead of water in the heat of athletic battle, the cold water that makes up much of the bottle will provide some fluid replacement. So far, so good, but one effect of alcohol is that it inhibits the brain's release of ADH. As a result, the kidneys no longer hold onto water as well as they did before you drank the beer. Soon, the kidneys are putting more water into the bladder rather than keeping it in the circulation, as it should under the circumstances. At this point, the situation may go from bad to worse quickly. Alcohol may cause inebriation, a condition that may blunt the senses (so that thirst is not as acutely noticed) and the judgment (so that you may drink more alcohol than you know is good for you). There's the real possibility that your dehydration will worsen rather than improve by drinking beer. Once inebriation and/or dehydration are advanced enough, the ability to sense thirst and obtain water may be increasingly impaired."

Answer 3

If you cannot get anything else to drink, yes, drinking beer is OK, but in practice, it is simpler to get water than beer. So, drink a little beer if you must (and you can rationalise that you were literally on the edge of a collapse) but drink water and electrolytes soon after that.

Answer 4

Beer will slack your thirst, but drink only to quench your craving or the dehydration will be worse the next day. Beer would be better than whiskey.