Greetings, beer lovers! Happy Friday, and once (or not) again, ‘tis chingchongchinaman as your socially inept guest FNBB blogger tonight, with esquimaux taking a well-earned Friday evening off from FNBB duty. Tonight’s subject, Damp January, is the obvious first cousin (or first derivative, if you’re mathematically inclined) to Dry January, the New Year’s resolution-ish idea of going alcohol-beverage free for January. I recall several friends who told me of their Dry January pledge in past years, so even self the loser knew about Dry January, but I’d not heard of Damp January until seeing the NYT article by Dani Blum from last week. For those who want to cut back on drinking, but don’t think that they can quite go all the way for 31 days straight, Damp January is a reasonable alternative.
One rationale behind lowering alcoholic beverage consumption is concern about cancer, as described in this January 2023 NYT article by Dana G. Smith that quotes Dr. Marissa Esser of the CDC:
‘Scientists think that the main way alcohol causes health problems is by damaging DNA. When you drink alcohol, your body metabolizes it into acetaldehyde, a chemical that is toxic to cells. Acetaldehyde both “damages your DNA and prevents your body from repairing the damage,” Dr. Esser explained. “Once your DNA is damaged, then a cell can grow out of control and create a cancer tumor.”
‘Alcohol also creates oxidative stress, another form of DNA damage that can be particularly harmful to the cells that line blood vessels. Oxidative stress can lead to stiffened arteries, resulting in higher blood pressure and coronary artery disease.’
If anyone wants to nerd out on the science of how ethanol can increase risk of cancer, two sample academic journal articles on the subject are:
(a) H.-K Na and J. Y. Lee, International Journal of Molecular Sciences, Vol. 18 (No. 6), p. 1116 (2017)
(b) H. Rumgay et al., Nutrients, Vol. 13 (No. 9), p. 3173 (2021)
My own beer and wine consumption habits are pretty modest, IMVHO, namely the odd glass of wine or beer with dinner. It’s comparatively rare, like that New Mexico festival I FNBB’ed about several months back, where I’ll consume too much beer compared to how much food I’ve had. But now maybe I’m even more self-conscious than usual about drinking, and especially in relation to having enough food to go with it. But clearly, the craft beer industry doesn’t want us all to stop drinking suddenly in January, do they? ;)
This isn’t stopping me from mentioning a beer in tonight’s FNBB, of course :) . Indeed, the featured selection tonight chez 3CM is a Sven “Kolsch-style ale” from Rockwell Beer Company here in STL. Rockwell classifies Sven under “light and crisp”, which is as succinct a summary as possible. I do like my Kolsch beers, and this one certainly did the job.
Obviously, if you’re imbibing tonight, then by definition, you’re not participating in Dry January :) . Damp January, however, may be another matter. Is anyone doing Damp January this month? My guess is that the regulars here aren’t, but different strokes for different folks. What are you sipping tonight? Or is anyone brewing their own? Inquiring minds, and all that….
P.S. esquimaux likes to include beer-related music videos in FNBB, which is a feature that self-the-loser has regularly not done (bad, bad 3CM). In a modest attempt to honor this feature, I include the following video, even though it has nothing to do with beer. However, it is a salute to the late great Peter Schickele, creator of P.D.Q. Bach, who left us this week at age 88. Margalit Fox has a great tribute article in the NYT here. And as for P.D.Q. Bach’s music, well, here’s a sample: