This is going to be a long blog post, filled with lots of extraneous stuff that you may or may not want to read. If you’re in a hurry, here’s the gist: new research indicates that beer hydrates better than water. Boom. Go make nachos. Now for the rest of us…

Let’s imagine a scenario. Picture a brilliant, bright summer day. You are in the park with a group of friends. The grass is lush, the sun is a yellow ball, the air is perfumed by all of nature. You are happy. People are everywhere and they are laughing and talking, moving their bones. They are enjoying each other and the weather and the fact that they are alive and they are able and they are here. This is the platonic ideal of shared space.

One of your friends (let’s call him Rodrigo) suggests a rousing game of pickup football. Everyone agrees that this is a splendid idea. Rodrigo is known for having good ideas. Teams are picked, strategies are developed, and the game is played. Your friends are competitors. The action is fiercely contested, momentum swings back and forth as each player strives to recruit one more fast-twitch fiber or gulp down one extra breath of sweet, sustaining oxygen. Eventually, the outcome is decided. Rodrigo’s team wins. Rodrigo is known for picking winning teams. He picked you.

Everyone collapses to the ground, spent and sweaty. The action is recapped. Boisterous claims of skill and valor are put forward and accepted as fact or brushed aside as cheap attempts at revisionist history myth-making. You are broadly hailed as the game’s MVP, and you sit quietly, soaking up the accolades and giving credit where it’s due. But your performance did not come without its cost. You are thirsty, tired, and sore. The summer sun, while still glorious, has begun to feel oppressive. It’s time to make a move.

"Let’s go to the bar," you say.

"The bar? Dude, we need hydration right now. So unless the bar is serving Gatorade, you’re crazed,” says Rodrigo. Rodrigo is known for his love of Gatorade.

But are you crazed? Well, according to recent research conducted at Granada University in Spain, you are not. Gracias Granada! The study was conducted on a group of students who were asked to exercise with enough intensity to raise their body temperature to 104 degrees. That amount of exercise is no joke. Once the desired temperature was achieved the students were given either water or beer, and the researchers tracked the hydration effects. The winner? Beer. Wonderful, wonderful beer. Is there anything it can’t do? So you say…

"Uh, Rodrigo? The bar isn’t serving Gatorade. But it is serving beer and, if I’ve learned anything from recent research initiatives (and we both know I have), it’s that beer is the king of hydration."

"Wow. I stand corrected. Let’s go hydrate like it’s 1999." Rodrigo is known for his graciousness and awkward, untimely pop culture references.

The moral of this story, obviously, is this: Beer is good, and getting better all the time. Learn from Rodrigo. Ditch the G-ade and step up to nature’s number one hydrator. You’ll be glad you did.