A specific ingredient may be the culprit behind your symptoms
Natural beer allergies are rare.
This article explains the symptoms, causes, risk factors, and diagnoses associated with a beer allergy.
The symptoms may start soon after they consume beer or take a little longer to come on.
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A severe allergic reaction can be life-threatening and is an emergency.
If you have these symptoms after drinking beer, call 911 or go to the nearest ER.
Causes
Several ingredients in beer can lead to beer allergy symptoms.
Beer ingredients that commonly cause allergies or sensitivities include barley, gluten, histamines, sulfites, and yeast.
Gluten
Gluten is a protein in wheat, rye, and barley.
What Is Celiac Disease?
Symptoms of gluten sensitivity or allergy include:
Histamines
Histamineintolerancemay cause a reaction when you drink beer.
Thats because beer contains histamine, produced during fermentation (yeast converts sugars to alcohol).
People with histamine intolerance have decreased or inhibited enzymes that break down histamine from food.
As a result, they cannot prevent histamine from entering the bloodstream and causing symptoms.
Symptoms of histamine intolerance include:
Sulfites
Sulfitesare in beer after fermentation.
If you have asulfite allergy, you will have symptoms when you drink beer.
Sulfite allergy symptoms include:
Yeast
Brewers yeast is made from a fungus.
It is in all fermented alcohol, including beer.
While rare, yeast allergy can cause an allergic reaction in some people.
A yeast allergy can cause hives and digestive symptoms.
Rarely, it can cause serious allergic reactions.
Alcohol Intolerance vs. Allergy
Food allergies and intolerances can be hard to tell apart.
Thedifferencelies in the body system that responds to food sensitivities and allergies, including beer and its ingredients.
Allergies occur when the body responds to anallergen(for example, an ingredient in beer).
When this happens, yourimmune systemoverreacts because it sees the allergen as foreign.
Your body creates antibodies to fight the allergen the way it would a pathogen.
Food intolerance takes place if yourdigestive systemhas a hard time with a particular food.
With intolerance or sensitivity, your digestive system gets irritated by certain foods or has trouble digesting them.
Food intolerances are far more common than food allergies, affecting up to 20% of people worldwide.
Diagnosis
There are several ways todiagnosean alcohol allergy or intolerance.
Then, youll attempt to add the food back in later to see if your symptoms come back.
Skin Test
Askin testis the standard diagnostic tool for finding out if someone has allergies.
A provider puts tiny amounts of potential allergens on your skin during a skin test.
Blood Test
Blood tests can be used for food allergy testing.
Blood tests look for antibodies to specific allergens in your blood.
A large number of antibodies may signal that you have an allergy.
Summary
Having a beer allergy is rare.
Common allergens in beer include gluten, histamine, sulfites, and yeast.
Beer allergies and intolerances are differentallergies are an immune response and intolerances are a digestive response.
Frequently Asked Questions
While most food allergies occur in childhood, they may happen anytime.
It is possible for a beer allergy to seemingly appear out of nowhere.
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