Previously published on bobzilla.tabulas.com

My friendly neighborhood coffee shop (which at this point it would be appropriate to say is a block away and I don’t drive to) happens to also sell beer and wine. My new beverage of choice there is a Brooklyn Brewery Black Chocolate Stout - recently added to this page.

I had noticed that I could only really drink about 2 of these before getting that warm fuzzy feeling, but usually attributed it to not having enough to eat prior to imbibing. Last night I was adventurous and went for a third. The resulting physical manifestations of my beverage choice made me come home and just wander over to the Brooklyn Brewery website. It turns out that this otherwise innocuous blend of hops and malted barley contains 8.7% alcohol (ABV). Sorry you won’t be able to get it, Matt. Maybe I should break some laws and mail some to you.

Now, you may be saying “Hey, the wine/rum/vodka/4-horesmen-of-the-apocalypse I drink has more alcohol than that!” While that may be true, most people who aren’t out to commit serious physical harm to themselves simply wouldn’t consume the fluid volume that someone drinking beer would. Allow me to paint a picture for your reference.

Budweiser - 5.0% ABV. Your typical hard lemonade/Bacardi Silver/etc. - 5.0% ABV. Guinness Draught - 4.2% ABV. Guinness (the usual beverage of choice) has LESS THAN HALF of the alcohol of the BCS. Wow. Next time, I’ll just have to imagine that the beer I’m drinking is one Guinness and that I shotgun another before I get then next bottle.

Of course, if one were driving, this would be considerably more of a concern. We would have to take into account that not only does Guinness have half of the alcohol, but that it takes twice as long to finish 6 as it does to finish 3, thus emphasizing the effects.

Okay, so this post is what happens when there’s nothing on TV on a Saturday morning (which is a crying shame - whatever happened to Dirk the Daring, Turbo Teen, Kidd Video? - BRING BACK SATURDAY SUPERCADE!).