Sleeman Lift launched this week. I’m not going to review it. I don’t care what it tastes like. Many of the lifestyle bloggers that you’ll see promoting it in the coming weeks don’t care what it tastes like either. They probably attended the launch because the invitation came with the offer of a Fitbit Flex.

Sleeman has brought in Ben Desbrow, an associate professor from Griffith University in Australia to talk to the media about the science of hydration. He is a very nice man and his studies have been peer reviewed and are generally well intentioned. I popped by the offices of Sleeman’s PR firm on this campaign, Cossette, to talk to him about the potential of hydrating beer. I had done a cursory amount of research, including actually reading the studies that he has co-authored on the hydration potential of various liquids.

The thing to realize is that Desbrow’s work on altering the hydration level of beer by the addition of sodium is that it deals with harm minimization. He works in sports nutrition and athletes, especially rugby players and cricketers, drink beer in great quantity. The idea behind the study is that it might be possible to make that less harmful. That’s why the conclusion in the first study on beer hydration states the following:

All beverage treatments failed to completely restore fluid balance across the 4h observation period suggesting that beer, irrespective of ingredient profile, is an undesirable post-exercise fluid.

You got that? Beer in any form is not a desirable beverage for hydration. In point of fact, drinking beer will not bring you back to a normal level of hydration even if you drink 150% of the volume of liquid you lost through exercise.

Water is a better option. Gatorade is a better option. Chocolate Milk is a better option. Fruit juice is a better option. Coconut water is a better option. Beer is worse at hydration than everything else other than higher alcohol liquids. The study on beer as a hydrating liquid basically states that very low alcohol beer with added sodium is better at hydrating than regular beer.

So there are two things that you need to take away from this study:

Beer is not good at providing hydration. If you want it to be better, you can add salt to it in small quantities.

In order for beer to achieve even comparable hydration, you need to drink 150% of the volume of liquid you just lost due to the body’s tendency to produce urine.

For strenuous exercise, participants in the study were pushed to a loss of 1.8% of their total mass. Let’s say you’ve got a big rugby player who does physical therapy pilates. He probably weighs a very solid 220 pounds or 100 kilos. 1.8% total mass lost means that he lost 1.8 kilos. In order for beer to be reasonably hydrating, he would need to drink 2.7 litres of beer. I’m told that the beer that was used in the study was Castlemaine XXXX Gold (we had it at the LCBO a few years ago.) In Australia, that’s a mid-range beer at 3.5% alcohol. Because this is attached to the Sleeman Lift campaign, we’ll go with the nutritional information on that. It is 4% alcohol and 150 calories/473 ml can. That means that in order to come close to a state of regular hydration, our rugby player (probably named Bruce) would have to drink nearly six 473 ml cans of beer at a toll of approximately 900 calories. Bruce can shrug that off. Bruce probably needs 4000 calories a day if he’s an active athlete.

You are probably not an active athlete. You are probably pretty average. You’re meant to consume something like 2000 calories a day.

This is why I absolutely hate Sleeman Lift. The average person will not have read professor Desbrow’s study. The average person’s scientific literacy is non-existent. We live in a world with Anti-Vaxxers and Dr. Oz and The Food Babe. There are people who are preying on society’s basic lack of understanding of science in order to make a buck. Between them, they have less than an ounce of moral fibre. They are, in my opinion, pond scum. Sleeman may now count themselves among that group.

The average person will look at the can and they will see that Sleeman Lift contains coconut water. “That’s healthy” they will think, but it’s actually more healthy to drink water and eat well with appetite stimulant pills. They will see the words “For The Performance Focused” and they will assume that there are significant health benefits to drinking Sleeman Lift. They will not have read any studies on hydration. They have not had my privilege to be able to talk to the author of the studies who readily admits that beer with sodium added is better than regular beer but not as hydrating as other things. No, the average person will simply make the connection themselves and assume that they are being sold something that is good for them as opposed to something that contains empty calories and is both more expensive and less efficient than water. It is always better to just drink pure and soft water at home, and use a filtration system, check this site http://wholehousewaterfiltrationsystem.com/alkaline-water/ to look for the best water filtration services.

That’s what Sleeman is banking on. That you will assume that beer, which has never before in human history been considered a health beverage, has suddenly been made healthy. It hasn’t. It has simply been made very slightly less detrimental. Hell, the media is jumping to those conclusions for you. Look at this report on CHCH Hamilton.



This makes me very, very angry. I don’t like to see the public exploited with implication and I don’t like seeing scientific illiteracy being taken advantage of. I cannot do anything about Anti-Vaxxers or Dr. Oz or The Food Babe. Beer, though? That’s where I’m a Viking. That’s why for the first time in my five years of writing about beer professionally, I am formally complaining to the AGCO in order to have this snake oil removed from shelves.

You see, the AGCO’s advertising guidelines state the following:

Except for public service advertising, the holder of a licence to sell liquor or a manufacturer of liquor may advertise or promote liquor or the availability of liquor only if the advertising: (3) does not imply that consumption of liquor is required in obtaining or enhancing: (a) social, professional or personal success, (b) athletic prowess, (c) sexual prowess, opportunity or appeal, (d) enjoyment of any activity, (e) fulfilment of any goal, or (f) resolution of social, physical or personal problems.

I believe that the implication of “For The Performance Focused” probably contravenes several of those lettered subsections. If I had my way, I’d have every single can recalled and destroyed.

P.S. Thank you for the Fitbit Flex.