If beer isn’t fattening, then how can one possibly get a “beer gut”? First, the nutrients in beer are so easily digested by the body that they leave behind a sensation of hunger. The desire for salt and consumption begins. Second, anything that one does eat is immediately digested. The alcohol, carbon dioxide (CO2) and bitterness in beer activate the gall bladder and the secretion of hydrochloric acid in the stomach. Food doesn’t lay in the stomach, and one never feels like one ate too much, even when one actually did.

In summary, people become fat from satisfying the appetite that beer creates. It leads one to eat more than one actually wants. Beer alone doesn’t make one fat; it’s the accompanying peanuts, chips and pretzels that cause the few extra pounds that the Bavarians more appropriately call a “Hendl Friedhof” (chicken cemetery).