Drinking beer creates chest pain
by P.A.
(New Jersey)
Drinking beer creates chest pain. WARNING: remove beer from glass before consuming
Drinking beer creates chest pain
Four years ago I had to stop drinking beer, because after just 1/4 to 1/2 a beer I would have a considerable pain under the bottom of my sternum.
My guess is, it is a gas build-up and/or an allergic reaction.
When I lived in Prague and drank fresh tap beer regularly, I had no issues. But when I moved to London and than home to the USA I slowly, over 1-2 years, started to get this pain in my chest.
I tried all types of beer, drank beer with lemon, warm and cold, etc. but nothing worked.
When I went back to Prague for a wedding I drank 4-5 beers with no issues at all. So I assume that the issue is the way beer is pasteurized in the US and UK.
Today, I only need to take 1-2 sips to know if I will have a reaction. 95 per cent of the time I have a reaction. My mouth tastes funny, the back of my throat itches/tingles and in 10 minutes or so I have a pain in my chest.
Interesting to note, I can drink and eat almost anything else except drink beer.
Any thoughts of what I can do to drink beer without moving back to Prague?
The Beer Doctor says:
Hi, first of all I must say it's an unusual reaction that has been happening to you. I think the pain which you experience at the epigastrium (bottom of your sternum) could be a result of chronic acidity or chronic pancreatitis, which you have developed over the years.
The reason for this is not completely clear, as I do not know your diet habits and your lifestyle, but drinking different kinds of beer has definitely contributed towards you developing chronic acidity.
To come to a conclusion that you might actually be suffering from an allergic reaction, there must be some additional reactions, like itching or redness of the skin or some other anaphylactic reaction. Since you have not experienced them yet, my bet would be you might be suffering from chronic gastritis.
Now the type of beer one gets from most European countries is brewed using a different method to that of USA and UK. Pasteurization is one aspect that might be the reason for your reaction; however, there are other things that might be equally important.
For example: it could be different styles of beer, like the ale or lager or hybrid beer. It could also be the type of yeast used to ferment the beer, or it might depend on the type of serving. Many metal kegs will be pasteurized with carbon dioxide and some with nitrogen and carbon dioxide.
With all these factors, it is hard to decide what might be the exact reason, but after some research I have noticed that in Prague, most bars serve cask conditioned ales which are unpasteurized beers (they are termed as real ale).
My guess is maybe you are accustomed for drinking real ale and you changed to hybrid beer or other styles of beer, which started causing you mild gastritis or acute episodes of pancreatitis which developed to a chronic pancreatitis.
In order to prevent these effects when you drink beer, I would suggest you to try real ale, or unpasteurized beer. Try drinking them at room temperature and not chilled. Hopefully this might do the trick.
If your symptoms persist, then it is better if you underwent some tests in order to rule out pancreatitis. I would not suggest any drug in order to counteract these effects, as it might worsen any other condition you might have.
Let me know how the real ale or unpasteurized beer works out for you.
