Why Is Beer Good For Horses?

We already know beer is good for people, right? Well, yes. Beer is considered a national staple food in Bavaria, where some say it’s “liquefied bread”. Even the traditional Bavarian breakfast features beer alongside the ubiquitous Weißwurst, mustard, and pretzel. Some say beer is even good to kill weeds…

Follow us on Instagram!

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by @under.therosebrewing

But is beer good for other animals (like chickens)? Can horses drink beer? If so, why is beer good for horses? Enough horsing around, let’s try to answer these questions in this article.

Horses and Beer

The truth is most horses love beer! (but bugs don’t) It’s probably because beer is made of grains like barley, wheat, and hops, which are similar to what horses usually eat. In fact, barley is very similar to oats, which is the staple grain in horse feed (as it has a lower amount of starch, making it more digestible).

Luckily, the alcohol content in beer doesn’t hurt horses, as they don’t get drunk with a few beers. In fact, an average-sized horse will have to drink at least ten 12-ounce beers, all at once, to notice any signs of being drunk. That’s a huge amount of beer, so don’t worry if your horse has 2 or 3 beers on a hot Sunday afternoon. 

Moreover, horses produce much more alcohol dehydrogenase enzymes that break down alcohols into useful ketones, aldehydes, and other metabolites that are useful for the body. This means that getting a horse drunk is much more difficult than placing a bucket of beer in front of him. Probably if you replace water with beer, you might get a horse drunk…

Quick fact: A typical horse weighs 1,000 to 2,000 pounds and has about 50 gallons of blood in his body. To get to a 0.10 percent alcohol level, the horse must drink about 200 ml of pure alcohol all at once. That translates to about 9 to 11 standard-sized beer cans. 

Beer Is Very Nutritional, Even For Horses

Really, beer is very nutritional. Some beers are even more so than others, but beer really is packed with carbs, minerals, and vitamins. And horses need them too.

The Calories

An average 12-ounce serving of beer has about 55 calories (very light pilsners and lagers) to 300 calories (for the heavy ales, stouts, and IPAs). Let’s say your horse wants to drink the average Budweiser beer, which has about 145 calories per 12-ounce can. An average-sized horse weighing 1,300 pounds needs about 17,000 calories daily for maintenance. By doing the math, an average Budweiser beer is less than 1 percent of the daily calorie intake. So yeah… you won’t have to adjust your horse’s diet if it only has one beer.

Vitamins and Minerals in Beer are good for Horses

Beer also has a lot of minerals that are important for humans and horses too. The most important vitamins present in beer are the eight B vitamins (B1 – thiamin, B2 – riboflavin, B3 – niacin, B5 – pantothenic acid, B6 – pyridoxine, B7 – biotin, B9 – folic acid, and B12 – cobalamin), but also various flavonoids, which are powerful antioxidants (sometimes known as vitamin P). These vitamins are important in building blood cells, maintaining nerve cells, and improving the metabolism of proteins, carbs, and fats, but also in improving the health of the skin and the coat. Beer also has small amounts of minerals important for horses, like magnesium, calcium, and sodium. Plus, it’s kinda sour, and horses love it! 

Although beer may provide additional B vitamins to horses, they produce the vitamins naturally in their hindgut system. Because of this, horses are very rarely affected by vitamin B deficiency. Some studies suggest that thiamin (B1) and riboflavin (B2) supplements are good for horses, especially during winter. 

Beer might help horses raise their natural B vitamins level, but the actual levels of these vitamins in beer are low. This is especially true for larger horses, who may need to drink several beers to get adequate B vitamins. Furthermore, filtered beers have negligible amounts of B vitamins, fiber, minerals, and yeast. So, if you want to give your horse a beer, make sure it’s unfiltered. 

Beer Yeast is Good for Horses

Most brewers add extra amounts of yeast to improve the fermentation of grains. During this process, the alcohol is produced. There are various types of yeasts, but the two main ones are used to produce lagers and ales. The Saccharomyces cerevisiae yeast strains in probiotic supplements have shown good results in stabilizing the hindgut environment. So, beer does have a good effect on the hindgut environment. Just make sure you give your horse unfiltered beer with a large amount of yeast. 

Beer, Horses, and Drug Tests

Horse breeders usually say that horses who drink small amounts of beer will not test positive for drug tests. Beer will rarely cause a positive drug test in horses, but check with your local sport’s governing organization before taking your horse to a competition. The USEF (The United States Equestrian Federation) provides guidelines to help horse owners understand and perform drug tests. Call USEF if you need help with drug tests for your horse.

My Horse Won’t Drink Beer

Beer is a delicious beverage for horses because it’s a natural juice from grains. It’s the same grains horses find attractive in the wild and almost the same ingredients in horse feed. Although it may taste bitter, most horses love beer. So what should you do if your horse doesn’t want even a sip of beer? A quick fix is to dilute the beer – add water to make it less bitter. Similarly, go for warmer beer (horses are not fans of cold beer). 

No matter what you do, don’t force your horse to drink beer. Make sure that your horse always has a bucket of fresh water nearby!

Brewing By-Products For Horses

While beer is an occasional drink for horses, some brewing by-products are ideal feeds for horses and other livestock. The by-products of beer production have high levels of carbs, protein, fiber, vitamins, and minerals, making them excellent feeds for horses, pigs, sheep, and poultry. 

The most important brewing by-product is spent grain from the germinated and dried barley malt. It has a high protein content (24 percent), vitamins (A, B, and C), and multiple minerals, enzymes, and amino acids. Horses and other ruminants (cows) love spent grain, but they should only eat a limited amount because it contains too much protein. 

Excessive amounts of protein mail lead to an excessive content of hordenine, which is considered a doping compound in equine sports. Spent grain should be fed to in-foal and foal mares in very limited quantities.

Brewery yeast is another by-product of beer production. It has similar nutritional values to spent grain, with many carbs, protein, B vitamins, and amino acids. Just like spent grain, brewery yeast is a good feed for horses, but it has too much protein for daily use. It should be used in quantities of up to 5 percent of the feed ration. Brewery yeast has another major benefit for horses – it works as a probiotic, promoting the growth of healthy microbial populations in the gut. It also has an important anabolic effect, promoting muscle growth. 

Wrapping It Up

Giving your horse a beer occasionally doesn’t have any negative effects. Data suggests that beer can be beneficial for your horse’s health (or even your dog’s health). Beer is packed with nutrients that are good for humans and horses. As to getting drunk, no, your horse will not get drunk from a few beers. Horses produce more dehydrogenase enzymes, which break down alcohol much quicker. Your horse won’t get drunk from just a few beers.