The Multifunctionality of Beer

[Bijo]

What uses or functions does beer have? Let us make a list, shall we? I'll start from what I think true...

• beverage
• food
• distractor
• painkiller
• bad sleeping potion
• cleaning liquid
• improver of hair?
• vision distorter (example: make women look better)

How about beer bottles?

• stabbing weapon (if broken)
• throwing weapon (if whole)

Well, that's about all I can think of for this right now, heheheh Correct and/or add your findings.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Muscle relaxant, as in a beer after a hard day chopping wood. Not exactly a painkiller, but sometimes pretty close to that...

Conversation improver. As in when you and a few buddies sample a beer that you have never had before, an exotic beer, or a beer with a reputation that must be "thoroughly analyzed."

College story enhancer. Many of my friend's college stories are kind of lame, but that one about waking up outside and jumping over a fence because the cops were coming stands out among the rest.

Foreign language skill multiplier. As in I went to Germany not knowing the language and beer helped me build up some confidence in the language once I did finally start to learn a bit of German.

That's all I've got for now.

[Husar]

Apart from the somewhat nutritional aspects, most of these are effects of alcohol I'd say.

"Muscle relaxant" sounds like a result of becoming numb to me, apart from that alcohol also reduces muscle tissue which is why body builders often don't drink (a lot).
You may also want to add dehydration to the list, another effect of alcohol, usually responsible for the headache.

[Uesugi Kenshin]

Apart from the somewhat nutritional aspects, most of these are effects of alcohol I'd say.

"Muscle relaxant" sounds like a result of becoming numb to me, apart from that alcohol also reduces muscle tissue which is why body builders often don't drink (a lot).
You may also want to add dehydration to the list, another effect of alcohol, usually responsible for the headache.

Well Husar I find that drinking a beer after hard work tends to relax muscles and reduce soreness related to working, and I don't mean a case of beer or anything extreme like that...

And I thought of another effect!

Urination encourager!!! 'Nuff said.

[naut]

Improver of dancing skills, or at least I hope.

[Strike For The South]

Candy is dandy but liqour is quicker

...

[English assassin]

Beer: The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems

With thanks to Homer Simpson.

[KukriKhan]

Foreign language skill multiplier. As in I went to Germany not knowing the language and beer helped me build up some confidence in the language once I did finally start to learn a bit of German.

How funny... I had exactly the same experience, back in the early 80's. "The Red Ox" was a local watering hole in the town I was stationed in; the army taught me some 'survival german', and I listened intently to conversations at the Red Ox. One night there, after several beers, I just blurted out something in German, my barstool-neighbor responded, and I said something else - and the place went deathly quiet - I assume they wondered how long I had been understanding them. Apparently 'immersion' and 'submersion' (in beer) had done the trick: I'd learned to think and speak in rudimentary, conversational German.

Today, 20+ years later and rusty, my sober German is horrible, but with just the right amount of lubrication to whatever part of the brain controls language, I can carry on a (light) conversation with my neighbor, Herr Hoffmann.

[InsaneApache]

I can carry on a (light) conversation with my neighbor, Herr Hoffmann.

Is it safe?

[Uesugi Kenshin]

How funny... I had exactly the same experience, back in the early 80's. "The Red Ox" was a local watering hole in the town I was stationed in; the army taught me some 'survival german', and I listened intently to conversations at the Red Ox. One night there, after several beers, I just blurted out something in German, my barstool-neighbor responded, and I said something else - and the place went deathly quiet - I assume they wondered how long I had been understanding them. Apparently 'immersion' and 'submersion' (in beer) had done the trick: I'd learned to think and speak in rudimentary, conversational German.

Today, 20+ years later and rusty, my sober German is horrible, but with just the right amount of lubrication to whatever part of the brain controls language, I can carry on a (light) conversation with my neighbor, Herr Hoffmann.

That's basically what I did, albeit with perhaps a tad bit more instruction and study. It felt great once my Vatti (German host dad) said that they would have to be careful what they said around me from then on because I understood everything, even if I did still mix up the articles constantly. Also having the other side of the conversation well "lubricated" tends to help as they don't care as much if you mess up every now and then.

[KukriKhan]

Is it safe?

Sure. "Coni" (Conrad) and I stay silent until we've both had 2 beers first. Those formalities out of the way, we start in English (his is from Austrian Uni, with an imitation hi-Brit accent; he sounds, to my ear, like David Niven portraying Colonel Klink - he says my German sounds like a drunken Swabian kindergartener with a deep voice, which makes sense). At 3 beers he starts dropping german terms and phrases into the conversation, and by 4 beers, I'm right there with him - though with incorrect sentence structure and mangled 'die, der, das' usage, which (maybe because of the beers, as Uesugi Kenshin suggests) he forgives.

We talk sport, weather, politics, gardening, fishing - guy stuff. If we have a 5th beer, my German usually disappears, and we go back to English. :)

[Adrian II]

Today, 20+ years later and rusty, my sober German is horrible, but with just the right amount of lubrication to whatever part of the brain controls language, I can carry on a (light) conversation with my neighbor, Herr Hoffmann.

That phenomenon is supported by psychological research. Don't ask me what research, not at this time of the night (4.00 am), but I remember this from my days as a Psychology student. The studies concluced that a person's capacity to reproduce information is optimal if he/she is in the same state in which the information was first received. The state being, in your case, that of glorious enebriation, and the information that of elementary German. Das ist alles wissenschaftlich bewiesen. Jawohl, Herr KukriKhan!