A brew for a diabetic friend?

[djinn88]

I have a good buddy of mine that has diabetes and I would like to brew something for him (he just had a kid, I'm sure he could use a few by now). Whenever we go out for beers he can only have one or two because of the sugars in them.

So the question is, can I make a GOOD beer that wouldn't send his insulin levels off the chart? I'm guessing that any alcohol inherently has a good amount of sugar/carbohydrates involved, but just wanted to know if this is possible. I also guess that making a good beer for a diabetic means lowering the ABV considerably. Anyhow, any ideas?


-Justin

 

[likwidbliss]

It sounds like you are seeking medical advise. Your friend should know his limits.

 

[ChshreCat]

The problem is that alcohol can be unpredictable in how your blood glucose levels react to it. It's hard to predict. You could do a dryer beer that would have less unfermentables, therefore lower carb levels, but the alcohol will still have it's effect. Not sure if you can brew a "diabetic friendly" beer.

 

[djinn88]

Ok, thanks. I just wanted to know if there was something that other people had heard of that I was missing. I would never consider anything posted here to be medical advice, I wouldn't risk anybody's health that way. It is better to just have him stick to one or two and watch his glucose levels.

 

[RogerMcAllen]

I would suggest something like a session strength pale ale. You can get a lot of hop flavor in there without too much malt.

 

[MBasile]

I've found the effect of alcohol on my glucose levels to be negligible compared to scotch. Brewheads.com has a calculator that tells you how many carbs are in an ounce of beer depending on OG and FG, after a while you can estimate pretty well. This is of course only useful really if he is on a pump rather than a shot regimen.

WAIVER: This is just my personal experience and only covers Type I diabetes. Actual mileage may vary.

 

[djinn88]

He does shots, so no dice. I read on here somewhere that you can put bean-o in your primary to reduce fermentables. I don't think I'm going to try to get too high-tech with this though. I will just hope that he can enjoy one or two of my regular homebrews and call it a day with that. Thanks for the help though.

 

[northernlad]

Unfortunately some people get the short end of the stick.

 

[MBasile]

He does shots, so no dice. I read on here somewhere that you can put bean-o in your primary to reduce fermentables. I don't think I'm going to try to get too high-tech with this though. I will just hope that he can enjoy one or two of my regular homebrews and call it a day with that. Thanks for the help though.

Bean- breaks down the long chain sugars or whatever, making it possible for the yeast to digest a great deal more, resulting in higher alcohol. I'd look to traditional English styles, when I was there I didn't have a beer over 4.5%.

 

[scrambledegg81]

Speaking from experience (type 1 diabetic for 20+ years), I think your friend is a bit misinformed about the effects of alcohol in a diabetic. The (generalized) low amount of carbs in the average homebrew isn't really cause to adjust insulin scheduling as long as you don't have too many. Alcohol doesn't tend to interfere with blood sugar levels either, which is good considering I'm a fan of heftier stuff!

 

[rebeltruce]

I'm what they call a late blooming type 1 (discovered this about 10 years ago)....I use insulin to control my blood sugar.

I've never really had a problem drinking beer.......I just keep an eye on my levels and make adjustments to my insulin accordingly.