It seems that the Lehigh University Women’s Center  is taking an important stand, opening up a much-needed conversation about the pressures college-aged women sometimes feel surrounding alcohol, according to an article on the Lehigh Valley Live website.

A part of the university’s Women and Health Speakers & Events Series–and as a follow-up to the screening of the documentary Miss Representation, which addressed the pressures surrounding the ideal of successful women–the event focused on issues such as body image, the prominence of alcohol on campus, and why women are now choosing to consume hard liquor instead of beer.

Rita Jones, the Director of the Women’s Center, said the event was meant to offer a space for conversation, and that it did, as students and faculty in attendance spoke candidly about the pressures and effects of alcohol on women in Lehigh’s community.

Apparently, many women are opting to drink hard liquor because it has fewer calories, validating that body image and calorie counting are affecting women’s choices. Most students at the event agreed that the “loudest social voice on campus is often one advocating partying,” and that alcohol has become a “social crutch since ”there’s there is nothing to do at a party but drink.”

Some students suggested they’d like to see more non-alcohol activities on campus and explained that when libraries closes early, “it practically encourages students to go out and consume alcohol on the weekends.”

For student-athletes, those at the event said that their team’s longest meetings focused on discussions of dry policies, which determine the times athletes cannot consume alcohol before and after sporting events.

Kudos to Lehigh for bringing these issues about women and alcohol to light and offering students a chance to speak out. Let’s hope that other colleges and universities follow suit.

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Quick question: Do you think women will drink more beer if it’s pink instead of amber?

Three female food technologists at the Durban University of Technology in South Africa are betting that the answer is yes! To test their theory, they’ve brewed up a strawberry-flavored beer called—wait for it—Pink Fantasy.

The women–Simone Beeharie, 20, Mishal Pillay, 20 and Sarisha Devnath, 19—used a home brewing system to create the beer, as part of a food product launch for the university.

Sarisha Devnath explained to Times Live that, “Beer is mainly drunk by men, so we decided to make something for women that has a less bitter flavor. Our beer has a strawberry aroma and is pink. It is more feminine.”

Tasters have been receptive, according to the women, though men have been apprehensive to drink the pink beer (or admit to liking it, perhaps).

For those of you who aren’t repulsed by the prospect of a sweet beer, the women hope to have their product on the market soon.

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In case you weren’t certain of alcohol’s central role in cultures across the globe, a new study has concluded that declining beer consumption may be partly responsible for the European debt crisis.

Throughout Europe, more people are saving money by drinking at home instead of in pubs. With fewer people patronizing hotels, bars and restaurants, there have been layoffs in the hospitality industry. Also, governments are collecting less sales tax on beer sales, since they aren’t selling as much.

The study, by Ernst & Young, paid for by the Brewers of Europe, found that beer consumption in Europe fell 8 percent from 2008 to 2010. This is partly driven by the recession, partly driven by health concerns and tougher drunken driving laws.

But it’s not all bad news for brewers, according to an article in the New York Times. Pierre-Olivier Bergeron, secretary general of the Brewers of Europe, predicts that the high price of wine may drive consumers to drink beer with their meals instead. He also notes that “a proliferation of microbreweries means that beer drinkers are being offered some of the variety and local character that makes wine appealing, making beer more attractive to younger, more affluent consumers.”

And on a positive note for non-drinkers, brewers are also seeing big growth in nonalcoholic beer, due to improved production methods that make the beverage more tasty.

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The Danish brewery Carlsberg is introducing a new “girlie” beer called Copenhagen, which they’re targeting to “modern” men and women. Packaged in a clear bottle, in clean, minimalist style, the design is modeled after the city it’s named for: “an international city of fashion and design.”

Why? Because, according to a spokeswoman for Carlsberg, these modern men and women want “drinks to match their style,” and may “reject a beer if the design does not appeal to them.”

Really? Cause this sounds kind of wimpy to me.

As much as I have to admit the new bottle is kind of cool, the beer itself looks like chardonnay. Supposedly, it’s less bitter than regular beer. But part of beer’s cachet is that it’s an acquired taste, not as easy as wine coolers or those alco-pops they market to teens. Maybe it’s better if the booze goes down with a bite, rather than so easily.

I’ll be sad if beer loses its macho swagger. Isn’t that the whole point of drinking beer? And remember those clear beers—Zima? They ceased production in 2008, though they’re still marketed in Japan. Personally, I thought they were kind of gross.

I don’t know. How do you feel, readers? Is design important to you, in choosing your drinks? Does the bottle, or the label, draw you to a certain brand, or do you go for the taste, the reputation, or the image?

by Caren Osten Gerszberg

When I was a sophomore in high school, my brother—then a high school senior—planned a big party at our house. Not only did he have my parents’ blessing, but they even went out to dinner while he was setting things up in our basement. It must’ve been winter, because I remember my brother making a fire just before the guests began to arrive, when a spark flew and lit one of the couch pillows on fire.

I guess the quickest way to deal with the pillow was to toss it outside, presuming the flames had been put to their rest. Within a couple of hours, only when numerous firefighters and their big red engine pulled into our driveway, did any of us realize that the pillow had been smoldering outside the basement door. The neighbors evidently called 911 when the odor wafted their way.

The friendly firefighters tended to the pillow and most definitely noticed the scene—harmless high school beer-drinking revelers hanging out, listening to music, and playing pool. Once the pillow was extinguished for real, they smiled and took off.

Fast-forward 30 years and note a number of significant facts:

1. I’m the parent of the high school senior now.
2. The drinking age is 21, while it was 18 when I was in high school.
3. I live down the street from the local police station.
4. High school kids in our community routinely attempt, often successfully, to smuggle beer and booze into a house party.

Last Saturday night, it was my child’s turn to host the party. While we were glad to let our daughter invite friends and other students from her school’s performing arts program–in celebration of four days of play performances–my husband and I had no intention of going out while the festivities took place. In fact, we had a plan in place, which was to ask each and every teen who walked through our front door to leave their coat and any bag on the table by the front door. This seemed a reasonable request, especially since we know people who have hired off-duty police officers to stand outside and monitor any potential contraband being smuggled into their kid’s party.

Once the shindig began, hordes of kids began to pour through our front door. These days, it takes only seconds to text your posse and tell them where the fun is. My husband stood guard at the door, while I took to the stairs. Within 30 minutes, the police had arrived.

The two officers stood on our front lawn, amid the small groups of kids who’d most likely exited to get high or drink outside of our house. When word traveled to the basement that the police were on site, my daughter ran upstairs and asked us to stall for a few minutes–she needed to clean up the beer cans she’d already discovered in the guest bedroom downstairs. We told her we would try, but I couldn’t help but wonder: “How is possible that kids have the nerve to stick bottles and cans down their pants and in their shirts right in the face of two adults who are asking them not to?”

Well, live and learn. My husband eventually let one of the officers take a walk inside and around the house–despite my hesitation–and the officer concluded that all was well and we were “doing a great job.” We were asked to lower the music (oh, did I mention two of the kids brought their professional DJ equipment?) and the party rocked on.

Kids came and left, and though we continued to eye each one of them, more beer and a bottle of vodka made it passed our parental checkpoint. The fire alarm eventually went off–thanks to the DJ’s fog machine–but the party lasted until about 1:00 am. My daughter came up afterwards to thank us for the party, and told us she had a great time.

The following morning, while cleaning up, I found a water bottle with the words “Cousins’ Reunion” splashed across the front–with just a little water left in it. “Smell it,” my daughter said. “Oh yeah,” I instantly realized. “Pure vodka.” My husband, meanwhile, was outside busily picking up empty beer cans and bottles around our front yard and our neighbors’.

I couldn’t help but feel badly for these kids. They are growing up in an environment that has made alcohol so forbidden, so undeniably dangerous in nearly every way, that they feel the need to sneak it at every turn. While the dangers are obvious–and we’ve been clear to discuss them with our daughter in addition to what she’s learned in school–there seems to be such a focus on controlling our children that they are bursting at the seams to get their hands on the stuff.

I wish things were a bit more relaxed, like when we were in high school. If the authorities showed up, rather than ask you to search your house, they’d survey the scene, see the responsible parents on hand, and go merrily on their way.

Caren Osten Gerszberg is a co-editor of the Drinking Diaries.

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Today, I read yet another article about parents arrested for letting their underage teens drink in (or this case, outside) their house. This time, it was two moms, who admittedly, were intoxicated themselves when the police came and found 15 teenagers drinking in their yard and making noise. In her defense, one of the moms said something to the effect of, “I can’t control my kid. Can you control yours?” When the officer asked her why she didn’t call the police, she said that it was Homecoming, and drinking is what kids do on Homecoming.

When we did a poll here at Drinking Diaries, asking “Would You Let Your Underage Teen Drink In Your House?” the answers were evenly split between: “Yes, but only sips of wine or beer at the dinner table” and “Yes, I’d rather have my kids drink under my supervision than out of sight. At least I’ll know what my kids are doing, then.” Fewer people said they would not allow their kids to drink in the house.

Here’s the real question: If you’d be willing to let your kids drink in your house, would you be willing to let them share a few beers with friends? What if they had 5 friends over, and they wanted to drink? What if it were 10? When does letting your teen drink in your house morph into hosting an underage drinking party–for which you can get arrested.

We want to know: What are your thoughts about this controversial issue? Are you willing to risk breaking the law, or do you (or will you) follow it to the letter?

“One Step at a Time” is a series of original essays we will be running monthly. We are excited to have writer and mom Patty N. share her fresh perspective as she embarks on the road to sobriety.

STEP FOUR

by Patty N.

The Fourth Step – a searching and fearless moral inventory – is not so much a step as it is a personal fact-finding mission, a sort of self-guided tour of the past designed to help us figure out why we drank.  Just after my 90^th day of sobriety, a clue appeared in my Inbox.

Doug Harrison* wants to be friends on Facebook.

I clicked on the link expecting to see the freckle-faced boy I knew in high school. Instead, a middle-aged man with a receding hairline and a face I no longer recognized greeted me. But just seeing his name  – Doug Harrison – sent me right back to the summer of 1981.

I was fifteen years old, heading into my junior year of high school and had absolutely nothing to do – no job, no camp, no family vacation, no responsibilities. Bored and a little lonely, I spent my days at the country club pool where my best friend, Amy, was a life guard. Doug, also fifteen, worked at the club as a golf caddy, and he would come swimming every day after work. One evening, he showed up with two cans of Budweiser for the three of us to share.  I hated the taste, but I loved the buzz. That was my first drink.

Soon after, Doug invited me to go tubing down the Truckee River with his brother, Steve – a senior – and a group of his friends.

“Are you kidding me?” I asked. Steve Harrison was the most popular guy in high school. He was the star of the basketball team, dated the head cheerleader and drove a brand new Camaro Z-28.

“Steve told me I could bring a friend,” Doug said. “And I want to bring you.”

A couple days later, Steve’s Camaro roared into my driveway.

I can’t believe I’m in Steve Harrison’s car, I thought. It smelled like new leather and Coppertone. Journey’s “Don’t Stop Believing” blared from the cassette deck.  Steve’s blue eyes met mine in the rear view mirror.

“Welcome aboard,” Steve said. “Do you know Deb?”  He nodded toward his tan, buxom girlfriend, who was dressed in a bikini top and cut-off shorts.

Of course I knew Deb. Everyone knew Deb. But she had no reason to know a geek like me.

“Hi,” she said, flashing her bright white homecoming queen smile.

“Hey,” I said, flashing my mouthful of metal. I self-consciously crossed my arms over my flat chest.

As we drove toward Truckee, Steve tossed two Mickey’s Big Mouths into the back seat. I studied Deb, her polished toes resting on the dashboard, as she effortlessly drank her beer. When I took a sip of mine, I actually gagged a little. Beer tasted bad enough and this cheap malt liquor was even worse. But I forced it down anyway.

I was definitely lit when we got to the river and, by the time we finished tubing, I’d had at least two more Big Mouths and a bag of green grapes. I stumbled into the back seat of Steve’s car.  Everything was spinning. Then, knowing I’d never make it to the bathroom, I leaned out the window and vomited on the door of the Z-28 in front of Steve, Doug, Deb and all of their friends.

They all started laughing and chanting, “Grapes! Grapes! Grapes!”  That’s the last thing I remember before I passed out.

I woke up just as Steve was pulling into my driveway. My head was pounding and I felt so humiliated that I’d thrown up in front of the popular kids – and on Steve’s car!

What if my stomach acid ruined his paint job – I’ll never be able to go back to school, I thought.

“Sorry I got sick,” I said, unable to make eye contact.

“Hey, that’s okay,” Steve said. “It was pretty funny.”

“Yeah,” Doug said, “It was fun.”

My mom was in the kitchen when I went inside.

“How was it?” she asked.

“It was fun,” I said.  “It was really fun.”

The next day at the pool, Steve and Doug cheered, “Grapes, grapes, grapes” when they saw me.  I was still a little embarrassed, but I loved the attention.

“Wow,” Amy said, “It sounds like you had a good time.”

My definition of fun became distorted that day on the Truckee River and, as I dig deeper into this personal excavation that is the Fourth Step, I’m able to see how often I confused self-destructive and even dangerous drinking with fun. Being the center of attention, making people laugh, and joking my way out of uncomfortable feelings – all of these became staples of my drinking life for the next 30 years. I denied my disease and dismissed my behavior, choosing to believe I was just a fun drunk. But nobody goes to A.A. because they’re having fun; we go because we can’t pretend anymore.

Doug Harrison wants to be friends on Facebook. CONFIRM or IGNORE.

I wanted to just click IGNORE and get rid of that thumbnail sized reminder of my embarrassing summer of ‘81.  But A.A. promises that if we thoroughly follow each Step, “we will not regret the past nor wish to shut the door on it.” Or in my case, throw up on it.  I knew what I had to do – I had to click CONFIRM.

*Names has been changed.

To read Patty’s earlier entries on Drinking Diaries, click here.

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For a new series of essays (and poems), we have invited some of our contributors to share a story, an episode, an experience that took place at a particular bar–a place that they hold in their memory for one reason or another. We hope you will enjoy reading these stories as they appear each Monday.

by Leah Odze Epstein

I’ll never forget the first night I walked into the Royal Palm—or the Palms, as we called it. “New York, New York” played on the tabletop jukeboxes, reminding me of my favorite diner back home.

“Start spreadin’ the news, I’m leaving today. I want to be a part of it, New York, New York,” Frank Sinatra sang in his velvety voice, luring me in.  “If I can make it there, I’ll make it anywhere.” This pretty much summed up how I felt about college.

After a high school career of pound-the-books nerd-dom, I’d decided that in college, academics would no longer take precedence (if my parents only knew…). I skipped the first few days of orientation to go to a Bruce Springsteen concert. Then I came in with a bang—greeted by the Leah Ooze sign on the door of my dorm room (my last name’s Odze), complete with a dripping puddle some helpful dorm-mate had drawn.

No matter. As I’ve detailed here at Drinking Diaries, I got drunk for the first time my first night of college. I blacked out, in fact. After that, I got a little smarter, but only a bit. Alcohol loosened my inhibitions, and by the second day, I took up with our helpful OC (orientation counselor). Call him Chaz.

Chaz was a junior, and by about night three, he began ushering me around to all the best campus sights: his apartment, his bedroom, and, when he realized he wasn’t going to get as lucky as he’d thought–his favorite bar.

I was thrilled that some guy wanted me. A junior, at that. And he wasn’t that bad- looking, if you could get past the nervous twitch. He was kind of bohemian and I liked that. I still wore acid-washed jeans, God love me, and pastels. My friend Julie soon put the kibosh on my wardrobe when she raised her eyebrow and said, “Pastels?” When I walked into the Palms, Julie’s words really hit home. From then on, I’d wear black and army green.

Did I mention that none of my fellow freshmen had ventured beyond the campus pub? I felt like a pioneer as I stepped into that smoky air, as if it were coating me with a new aura. Pool balls cracked, pinball machines plinked, but mostly, the place buzzed with constant conversation and beer bottles clinking, as if life at this bar were a constant toast to the fun of it all.

Kids sat four or six to a booth, head to head, at beat-up wooden tables with carvings and graffiti. And the smell. The Palms reeked of the beer that everyone drank—Rolling Rock in bottles, mostly—but also Budweiser and Gennee Cream Ale.

Chaz steered me to the back of the bar. Next to the pinball machines, a bald guy with a thin braid down his back sat cross-legged on top of a picnic table, holding court and smoking clove cigarettes, while people stood around him. One guy wore a beret, which thrilled me to no end, because trust me, no guy in suburban Maryland dared to wear a beret.

Yes, there were other Cornell bars, but as far as I was concerned, those weren’t for me. Let the boarding-school types and the upscale snobs have their chardonnay at Ruloff’s; let the jocks and the grunters line up their penny shots at Dunbars. From the day Chaz took me into the Royal Palm, the Palms–with its “I don’t care if you love me” attitude–was mine.

Perhaps I’m exaggerating (but not much) when I say I ended up there every night, after every party, after every study session or to avoid studying. Any excuse, and I was there, sharing a pitcher with my friends. Afterwards, we’d head to the corner deli to marvel drunkenly at the Potted Meat Food Product.

I met my first real boyfriend at the Palms. It was the one time I walked into the bar alone, over the summer, without the armor of my friends. I can’t remember why, but I walked right up to this guy and asked him if he was Swedish (he was). So was I (half). And that was that.

Years later, I went back to my twentieth reunion. My friend Julie and I made the Palms our first stop, in the middle of the day. I looked at her and said, “Thank God it’s the same.” The jukeboxes, the dartboard, the ceiling tiles, each one hand-painted by a Palms regular. We looked for things we’d scratched into the tables, or that had been scratched into the tables about us. At the Palms, you made your mark, literally, whether by writing on the walls or tables, or painting a ceiling tile. The bar belonged to me and Julie and everyone else who passed through.

The owners hadn’t changed a bit–they’d already aged, long ago, from all the cigarette smoke and beer. They seemed happy to see us, even the guy who’d caught me with my pants down in the men’s room one drunken night, when I had to pee and the ladies room was full. I remembered how he stood there relentlessly, refusing to get out, despite my hollering, holding the door open until I pulled up my pants and exited to the cheers of the growing crowd. Still, I forgave him. The grumpy owners added to the charm, and life in your late teens is so much more fun when you have authority figures to push against.

We visited again at night, and maybe that was our mistake, because once the people filled in, we could see they were all wrong: popular people with their fickle tastes, listening to current favorites instead of classics–“Living on a Prayer” blasted from the CD jukebox.

The crowd spilled out onto a back patio, which I never knew existed. Julie and I opted for the bar, where the crowd seemed older than the table sitters or the people milling around, walking up and down the aisles to see who was there. I almost joined them out of habit, before I realized that all our peers were long gone.

We sat down, and Julie whispered to me, “Don’t look now, but that townie guy’s staring you down.” I glanced over at Grizzly Adams to my left, preparing to tell him I was here to reminisce with my friend, so if he could kindly give us some space, I’d appreciate it, when he said, “Hey, Leah.”

“Um, hi?” I said, not wanting to be rude. I felt like I was back in college, at the dining hall after a drunken night, when a guy I didn’t know would say hi and I’d cringe, wondering what idiotic thing I’d done the previous night.

Well, this guy knew me, all right. He turned out to be the boyfriend. My first love. Sitting next to me at the bar. Unrecognizable, until he opened his mouth. Then, he became the same laid-back guy I remembered, minus the frat-boy attitude, plus a long beard and a tattooed girlfriend.

Different-looking. Southern sounding, even though he was from the North. But underneath, he had the same essential nature. Just like the Palms, which, I reminded myself, still had “New York, New York” on the jukebox, just waiting for someone like me to come along and press play.

Leah Odze Epstein is the co-editor of Drinking Diaries. She also writes middle grade and young adult fiction. You can follow her on twitter at @Leaheps.

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by Patty Nasey

Last month, my 11 year-old daughter and I were playing Kadima on the beach in the Dominican Republic. It was early evening and we were waiting for my husband and youngest daughter to get ready for dinner.

“Let’s meet them at the bar,” I said. “You can get a mango smoothie and Mommy can get a Presidente.”

“Why do you keep ordering beer?” my daughter asked. “I thought you didn’t want to drink anymore?”

She was right. Sort of.

Almost two years ago, I quit drinking. There was no intervention, no DUI, no court-ordered rehab, no AA.  I didn’t think I had a “problem.”  Sure, I sometimes had one too many and was often the last one at the party, but it’s not like I carried a flask of in my bag or drank every day.  I just liked to have fun. Then I turned 40 and the drinking became less fun.  I had trouble remembering conversations after two drinks, yet I would keep refilling my glass. And my hangovers had become debilitating, sometimes lasting for two days.

My self-imposed abstinence began in April 2008. I was consulting for a fashion magazine and had been invited to a staff dinner at a Mexican restaurant. After two (or three? or four?) cucumber agave margaritas, I rallied some friends to meet me for a nightcap. I remember champagne, Grand Marnier and a plate of fries. I do not remember the cab ride home. I do not remember losing my phone.  And I do not remember anything my friends and I talked about.

The next morning, I had an 8am breakfast meeting at Conde Nast with the magazine’s publisher and her management team.  I slipped quietly into the executive dining room and kept my throbbing head lowered, trying to avoid making bloodshot eye contact with anyone.  I hoped nobody would notice my trembling hands as I picked up a piece of plain toast and a cup of coffee, and prayed I wouldn’t have to speak since at any moment I could start projectile vomiting like Linda Blair in The Exorcist.

“Are you okay?” one of my colleagues asked after the meeting. “You looked like you were dying in there.”

I was dying. Instead of feeling like the successful, accomplished professional who enjoyed a social drink once in a while, I felt like a pathetic, out-of-control, sloppy drunk.

“I’m quitting drinking!”  I announced that night at dinner with my husband and kids.  Perhaps because I’d worked for so many magazines, I had a habit of making big, headline-style declarations of some new self-improvement campaign.  They had heard me announce with great gusto…

“I’m getting organized!”

“I’m through with carbs!”

“I’m joining a gym!”

“I’m not coloring my hair!”

…only to see me come back from the salon with fresh highlights, eating a bagel while trying to find my gym membership card in my messy, disorganized purse.

But this time the stakes were higher than the number on the scale or the shade of my hair color. And I managed to stay off the sauce for a full year. My husband doesn’t drink much so my sobriety didn’t significantly alter our lifestyle.  My friends assumed I was on another one of my self-help kicks so they just rolled their eyes as I brought my own Fresca to their dinner parties.

In April 2009, I celebrated my year of sobriety with a glass of Veuve Cliquot.  Nothing bad happened. I didn’t get drunk. I remembered the conversations.  So I decided I could start drinking again – but only in moderation and not in front of the kids (interestingly, I wasn’t ready to admit to them that I had caved in on one of my resolutions.)

But the hiding was hard – I found myself lying all the time.  I’d put beer in an opaque glass and say it was Fresca. I’d decline a glass of wine and then gulp down my husband’s when the kids weren’t looking. I got so drunk at a party that I fell down and broke a rib, but told the girls I’d tripped on a step.  When I was bedridden with a hangover after my 44^th birthday party – an event that began with mango margaritas and ended with belly dancing at some Middle Eastern restaurant –I pretended I had the flu.  And when I ordered a Presidente in the Dominican Republic, I told them it was “grown-up soda.” But they knew it was beer.

“I’m on vacation,” I told my daughter as I tried to get her to leave the beach and go to the bar with me.   “Mommy can have one drink.”

She stopped playing Kadima and looked me right in the eyes.

“You know what happens, Mom” she said. “One drink leads to another, then to another, then to another. And before you know it you’re drunk.”

I was dumbstruck.  How did she know what I didn’t yet know –that it’s the first drink that gets you drunk?  How did she know what I was still unwilling to admit to myself – that I cannot drink?

So I didn’t.  I didn’t order a beer that night. Or the next night.  Or the next.  I’m not making any promises or grand declarations.  I’m just trying not to drink. One day at a time.

Patty Nasey is a 20 year veteran of the magazine industry. She has worked at Time Out New York, Jane, Lucky, Teen Vogue, Mademoiselle and SPY, and written for a variety of publications, including Time Out New York Kids, New York Magazine and PAPER. Patty currently works as a retail marketing consultant for Women’s Wear Daily, a division of the Fairchild Fashion Group. She lives in New York City with her husband, two daughters and a dog.

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If you knocked a few back during last night’s Super Bowl (and perhaps after if you’re a Saints fan), the upside to all those calories is that you may have been improving the density of your bones.

According to a new study published in the February issue of the Journal of the Science of Food and Agriculture, published by Wiley-Blackwell, beer is a significant source of dietary silicon, a key ingredient for increasing bone mineral density.

After analyzing 100 commercial beers, researchers from the Department of Food Science & Technology at the University of California, Davis, determined the relationship between beer production methods and the resulting silicon content, concluding that beer is a rich source of dietary silicon.

They discovered that beer, especially pale ales (as opposed to darker beers), contains high levels of silicon known to slow down the bone thinning that leads to fractures and boosting the formation of new bone. The recent finding backs up previous research which also showed that the drink was good at fending off brittle bones – especially in women.

“We have examined a wide range of beer styles for their silicon content and have also studied the impact of raw materials and the brewing process on the quantities of silicon that enter wort and beer,” said Charles Bamforth, lead author of the study.

Now it may not be the same as a glass of milk, and I may have to rethink my penchant for dark ambers, but next time I sip from a cold bottle of another favorite, Sierra Nevada Pale Ale, I’ll remember that I’m doing just a touch of good for my health.

Yo, Superbowl? Women are watching, too. NielsenWire reported that in 2008, women made up nearly half of all Super Bowl watchers. And–surpise surprise: 10 million more women watched the 2005 Super Bowl than the Academy Awards (Forbes ).

Plus, I would add, women definitely do more than their share of Super Bowl snack & beverage shopping. And yes, they do drink beer. According to drinkfocus.com,women account for 25% of beer consumption.

So will this be the year of the woman-centric Superbowl Beer Ad? Well, yes and no.

One of this year’s commercials features a man who skips his softball game to attend his wife’s book club because she’s serving Bud Light. Women can laugh at the irony (sort of like those “Porn for Wives” books, where buff husbands scrub the toilets in their boxers), but are the ads laughing with us, or at us?

And never fear–there’ll certainly be plenty of ads aimed at the hormonal teenager that advertisers believe lurks inside of all men–ads featuring big-bosomed beer-sipping babes.

But advertisers are getting smarter. The trend now is toward over-the-top ads. As Vanessa Richmond points out on AlterNet:

“Today’s ads are so over the top it’s clear they’re somewhat ironic. At the end of the cat fight ads, for example, the women, who are also drinking beer, roll their eyes. The ads create a knowing wink fantasy bubble that’s enhanced by the fact that everyone knows they’re getting away with something naughty…The fantasy is that men, in particular, can have it all. Because the ads wink at viewers, and because they’re so over the top, men can get away with enjoying the pleasures of a sexist fantasy world, while an equal number of women sit in the audience. They can have their beer and drink it too.”  

Or wine. This year, I’ll be making chili and if I drink at all, it’ll be wine, since my husband is allergic to beer. I wonder how many other women and men drink wine, or other cocktails, instead of beer. Do you drink during the Super Bowl? If so, what do you drink? Anyone else drinking wine instead of beer?

If you’re watching the Super Bowl tonight, be sure to check out the ads. Were any of them aimed at you? Did they make you laugh, or cringe? I’ll be watching, and I’ll keep you posted.

POSTSCRIPT: The Book Club ad was funny, but it was total frat-boy humor: i.e. “Did you like Little Women?” one of the book club members asks, and the dude (husband guy) says something along the lines of, “Yeah, I like ‘em little, big, whatever…” Funny, I have to admit, yes, in the way I can laugh along with the frat boys, but we’re still not in the driver’s seat in those commercials. We’re still not the beer buyer there. What do you think?

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I don’t know about you, but my last few Sundays (and some Saturdays) have been filled with football. I have a husband and a son who are fairly smitten with watching overgrown boys run around a field in any type of weather throwing and chasing a ball, and then falling upon one another to retrieve what seems to be as valuable as a the Hope diamond, ignoring that they are potentially crushing someone else’s–or their own–skull.

It is commonplace on these long weekend afternoons for my two boys to sit on our family room couch, snacking on thick, extra dark pretzels (paying no attention to the crumbs and salt bits that fall in between the couch cushions) and drinking. If my nine-year-old is feeling really hyped up for the event, he’ll ask if he can have a soda–usually saved only for special occasions in our house–while my husband opts for a cold Saranac Black & Tan, his beer of choice on these special game days.

When game time begins and all players–and viewers– prepare for the coin toss (or on some days the pre-game show needs to be screened first), that’s my clue to take to the living room. I’ll usually curl up on the couch, with either a cup of tea or a glass of wine close by–book, newspaper, and laptop at the ready for at least four hours of quiet time (save for the occasional shrieks coming from the next room).

Once in a while, my husband will gently request (“quick! come fast! hurry up!”) that I come and join them to watch a replay of some guy running 40 or 50 yards down the field and then doing some kind of tribal dance in the endzone (that’s actually my favorite part). I oblige for the sake of my son. I don’t want him to think that his mom isn’t a woman with varied interests.

And then, I retreat to my corner in the next room. Happy. My husband chugs his beer and my son his soda, and both scream at the TV. I sip my wine (or tea), cozily engaging in reading and/or writing.

So, in truth, it turns out that football days are not so bad. This coming Sunday is a really big game, when my husband’s #1 team (NY Jets) will play against my son’s #1 team (Indianapolis Colts). There will probably be a lot of noise coming from our house as of 3:00 pm EST. I may hide out at a neighbor’s house. Or maybe, just maybe, I’ll grab a beer and sit with the boys, pretending that I actually care…

by Deirdre Sinnott

When I was 14-years-old, I found myself in a tight huddle with a few of the cool high school kids on a cold night in the tiny village of Clinton, New York. For most of the people in our knot, beer was the main attraction. But finding myself standing, concealed by tall cedars, in the town’s small graveyard, splitting a six-pack of Genny Cream Ale, gave me my first tantalizing glimpse of the social glue alcohol could provide. Across the street stood our destination — the Clinton Arena and that night’s hockey game. I stamped my feet, hating the cold of the crunchy snow and loving the freeze of the Genny as it slipped down my throat. I was in ninth grade or so and it was the first time I had my own beer to drink. But of course it wasn’t my last.

I rode a wave of suds through college. It was my constant companion, whether I was flopped on the industrial carpet of my good friend’s dorm hallway charming his mates or perched on a stool at the glittering bar of Phoebe’s Garden Café in Syracuse, NY, after a grueling day in the college theater mines. The arrival of the beer signaled that a new phase of the day was beginning. Beer was my reward, my comfort, my release.

I was never really satisfied with the volume of liquid that a mixed drink offered. I was incapable of sipping, so my alcohol/drunkenness calculations were frequently found wanting if I strayed into the rye-and-ginger or the gin-and-tonic world. I found that beer, in a single serving size can, prevented the sort of mess that a Long Island Iced Tea might engender. At least drinking beer usually meant that I was not going to rely on friends to hoist my arms over their shoulders and stagger together, like a bad imitation of the Rockettes, across the manicured lawns of fraternity and sorority row to get home.

As I grew older and moved to New York City, beer made for the perfect excuse for camaraderie. After rehearsals, my fellow theater addicts and I would retire to a bar that served 50-cent beers in eight-ounce glasses. The place was crusty, covered with a patina of wild 1970s action where men, still dirty from a day of manual labor, smashed down shots and brawled for fun. Some of the holdovers still occupied the same barstools; their hands remained rough, but not as steady. Buying rounds there was easy and drinking them even easier.

Beer rarely broke its promise to me. It remained a reliable 5% alcohol level, enough to soothe my troubled brain and normally expensive enough to keep me from enjoying too much of it.

I don’t remember my last beer. I know I was drinking Budweiser instead of my beloved $1.49, 40-ounce malt liquor. I’m sure it was cold and had an effervescent bite as it slid over my tongue. It, no doubt, radiated tranquility through my core. The difference with that beer was that I drank it alone. The “social” part was over. I stuck with the beer, not the friends.

Now that beer and I have parted ways there are no hard feelings — at least on my part. Breweries across the U.S. and Ireland might have noticed a slight decline in their sales numbers in February 1997, but I’m certain that others have taken my place at the tap.

But during those early years, I loved beer so much that I said I could write verse about its virtues. Of course I was too busy enjoying it to actually put fingers to keyboard. So here is the best I can do now, in this post-beer moment:

Time was, I was queer for beer, my dear.
I drank and I drank till I stank.
I didn’t care if the weather be fair,
Snowy or hot or what-not for my shot.
Nights weren’t concluded till I was polluted,
Like a sack on my back run down by a Mack.
When the sun rose and I woke from my dose,
God it was vile, lying in bile, face creased by floor tile.
Those mornings I vowed to stop getting plowed
Alas by midnight all the might of my fight
Would fail by the wondrous pale of an ale.

This is Deirdre Sinnott’s second essay for Drinking Diaries (back in November, she wrote a great piece called “The Grinder.”) You can find out more about Deirdre by visiting her website at www.DeirdreSinnott.com.

I don’t know about you, but after I’ve completed a long run, I feel like I’m entitled to drink anything or eat anything. Hence, the reason I haven’t lost weight when I’ve trained for the two half marathons I’ve run. And I’ll bet that many, many triathletes and marathoners celebrate their finishes with pasta or pizza and beer.

Apparently, I’m not the only one who feels she deserves a treat after exercising. A kind Drinking Diaries reader sent a link to this article, which came to the surprising conclusion that people who drink may exercise more than people who don’t (or who only drink lightly).

And then there are The Boston Hash House Harriers, a group of runners who meet once a week and call themselves, “a drinking club with a running problem.” First, interested runners meet at a pre-determined location, and then they follow a trail, with stops along the way for beer or water breaks. You don’t have to drink alcohol to be a member, but most people, it seems, do, and you have to be 21 to join.

Read below about the “Beer Check(s)”  and the end of the trail (quoted directly from the Boston Hash club’s website):  

On this day, when we give thanks while filling our bellies with the bounties of nature, we also think about the origins of the holiday and our forefathers (and foremothers).

In reading about Thanksgiving, I learned a great deal about the prevalence of beer and alcohol for the Pilgrims, and the drinking habits of our leaders early in our nation’s history.

Did you know that the Puritans loaded more beer than water onto the Mayflower before they cast off for the New World?

Or that Abraham Lincoln held a liquor license and operated several taverns?

And that in the 1830′s the average American aged 15 or older consumed over seven gallons of absolute alcohol (resulting from an average of 9 1/2 gallons of spirits, 1/2 gallon of wine, and 27 gallons of beer), a quantity about three times the current rate?

To learn more about the beer-drinking Pilgrims and brewmasters like Thomas Jefferson, Benjamin Franklin and George Washington, click here. And have a very HAPPY THANKSGIVING!