Is Beer Acidic or Alkaline?

If you’ve been learning about acids and bases, while also enjoying beers with your friends, you may have been asking the question “is beer acidic or alkaline?” Or perhaps you have suffered from acid reflux and now you’re wondering if beer might be contributing to that.

Either way, the question of acidity or alkalinity in beer is a good one, and the answers can help you decide what to put in your body.

The Difference Between Acidic and Alkaline

Before we talk about whether beer is acidic or alkaline, let’s talk about the difference between acidic and alkaline.

Acidity and alkalinity are a way of discussing the chemical make up of different compounds, as well as the chemical make up of our bodies. If something has more acid in it, we call it acidic, if we have something that is less acid, we call it alkaline, or a base.

In chemistry, a pH scale is used that ranges from 0 to 14, with 7 being neutral. PH stands for potential hydrogen, basically the amount of hydrogen that is donated or contributed to a compound.

When acid is added to something, the concentration of hydrogen increases. Interestingly enough, the scale then goes down, with more acidic compounds, going lower on the scale, all the way down to zero, and less acidic compounds going higher on the scale, all the way up to 14.

For example, neutral water has a pH of 7, lemon juice has a pH of 2, bleach has a pH of 13.

Are Humans Acidic or Alkaline?

For human beings to survive, we have to maintain a precise level of acid/base balance. At homeostasis, humans range between 7.35 and 7.45 on the pH scale, making us slightly alkaline.

When the human body goes outside of its range, either below, or above, we enter the level of disorder, and our body starts fighting to get us back to homeostasis.

It’s important that we understand human pH needs as eating too many acid foods and not enough alkaline foods can lead to a pH imbalance. This imbalance shows up as acid reflux or even as GERD, or gastroesophageal reflux disease, which can be really painful.

Acidity in Beer

And that’s why whether or not your food or beverages are acidic matters.

For someone with too much acid in their body, adding more acid is like adding insult to injury.

And beer is indeed acidic. It can range from a 3.0 on the pH scale up to a 6.0 on the pH scale.

3.0 is pretty acidic.

Beer is acidic for two reasons. Both the malt and the alcohol derived from the malt are naturally acidic.

Lactobacillus

Lactobacillus is the Latin term for the bacteria that produces lactic acid.

The malting process, which is undergone for virtually every grain that is fermented to make beer, unlocks the sugars from inside of the grain. But there are also populations of lactic acid bacteria growing on the malt. Thus, by its nature, malted grain is acidic.

Alcohol

Then, during fermentation the sugars in the malted grain are consumed by yeast, and converted to alcohol and carbon dioxide, both of which are acidic.

Add to this the effect of the lactic acid bacteria, and you have a double hit of acid in your beer.

Alkalinity in Beer

Sometimes, brewers find that the pH level is too low, and so they will add calcium carbonate, which will raise the level of the pH, introducing more alkalinity to the beer.

However, if beer is too acidic, it may be the result of a bacterial infection. Brewers will notice a dramatically low pH when they test the levels.

Non Alcoholic Beer

Some people are tempted to believe that you can avoid acidity in beer by sticking to nonalcoholic beer. Unfortunately, because the acid comes from the malt, as well as from the fermentation process, low pH levels are hard to avoid in beer.

Even once the brewer filters out the alcohol, factors that lead to the acidity remain.

If you’re not trying to avoid acid altogether, but rather seeking out foods and beverages with lower acid levels, higher pH levels, you can find beer with less acid.

The beers with the least amount of acid have shown to come from lagers and beers made with malted barley.

Lagers are fermented with the yeast strain Saccharomyces pastorianus, which, studies have proven, produces much less acetic acid, than does ale yeast, Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Among all of the grains used to make beer, barley is the lowest in acetic acid, which is why barley malt based beers tend to be the lowest an acid levels.

So your best bet, if you’re trying to reduce your acid intake, is to seek out barley malt lagers.

Does Beer Make You Alkaline or Acidic and Why It Matters

In general, beer won’t make you alkaline or acidic. The human body is really good at maintaining homeostasis, and it is hardwired to keep you at that 7.35 to 7.45 range. When acid is introduced to your body, a chemical reaction will be triggered that brings your body back to alkaline levels.

However, if you have a disorder, and you are already more acidic, beer can absolutely make that situation worse. Because you’re already out of balance.

Thus, if you don’t already have acid reflux, or GERD, or some other disorder that throws your acidic levels out of normal range, having beer with your buddies isn’t going to change your acid levels.

If you do suffer from a disorder that throws your acid levels out of whack, you probably want to avoid beer, and alcohol in general, altogether.

Acid reflux is not fun for anybody.

Cheers!

Passionate about the beer and/or wine making process? So are we! If you’re interested in finding out how you can use our technology to control fermentation and monitor your yeast, save work hours and improve the cost-efficiency of your business, drop us a line at [email protected] or check out our product pages:

Also, you can now get access to a fully functional demo account to test our Web App. Completely free of charge and with no commitment to purchase.

Sources:

  1. https://www.soundbrewery.com/is-beer-acidic-or-alkaline/
  2. https://beerandbrewing.com/dictionary/A01b9mKR1M/
  3. https://www.mdpi.com/2311-5637/8/10/539
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