Researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago came to the conclusion that beer makes men smarter. This is exciting, but we would have known it years ago if we’d just listened to Homer Simpson.

As the New York Daily News explains it, a few good doctors devised a bar game in which men were given three words, and then instructed to come up with a fourth word that fit the pattern. For example, the word "beer" could fit with bottles, growlers, and kegs.

Half of the game’s players were given two pints while the other half got nothing.

After two beers, the drinkers were able to solve 40% more of the problems than their sober counterparts. Drinkers finished their problems in 12 seconds while non-drinkers took 15.5 seconds.

According to psychologist Jennifer Wiley and her report on the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences website, people were not as strong at performing memory related tasks at 0.07 blood alcohol – but were significantly better at creative problem-solving.

"We have this assumption, that being able to focus on one part of a problem or having a lot of expertise is better for problem solving," says Wiley. "But that’s not necessarily true. Innovation may happen when people are not so focused. Sometimes it’s good to be distracted."

That explains why some of the world’s most notorious drunks were able to write so well. I’d like to give Hemingway, Kerouac, Faulkner, and the one and only Edgar Allen Poe a postmortem shout out for that. Guess it’s a good thing the kegerator is located in the marketing department.

TAGS [ Beer News | Behavioral and Brain Sciences ]