Now that is some old school metal.

GN

No. That doesn't look great imho

All wine contains sulfites. The occur naturally.

Nuance: Most American wine uses a shit load of it. I haven't found evidence that it's specifically responsible for the headaches you'd get. However, if you use a ton of sulfites, you probably put a ton of other things into the wine and any of those could be giving you the problem.

In the US there are 73 approved ingredients that you don't have to put on an ingredients label for a bottle of wine.

I use an extremely small amount of sulfites in my wine making.

I used to think alcohol was alcohol.

Beer...Wine. They both got me drunk.

Then I started paying attention.

To how beer left me foggy.

And how wine didn’t.

Here’s what I found 🍺🍷🧵

Wine and Beer Start From Different Foundations

Wine is made from fermented grapes.

Beer is made from fermented grains.

That difference really matters.

Grapes naturally contain compounds that survive fermentation and end up in your glass. These include polyphenols, which have been studied for their ability to reduce inflammation, support blood vessels, and protect cells from oxidative stress.

Beer starts with starch. After fermentation, most commercial beer is filtered, pasteurized, and standardized. That strips out nearly all of the byproducts that might offer anything beyond alcohol and empty calories.

Both wine and beer can include additives that aren't listed on the label. But with wines, more of the beneficial compounds tend to stay in. It is also easier to find low-intervention wines with few additives, and there is a stronger culture of traceability in wine. People care who grew the grapes, how they were grown, and where.

You can find good beer and bad wine.

But at the baseline, wine has more going for it.

Blood Sugar and the Crash

Most people chalk up how they feel after drinking to “just a hangover.”

But part of that foggy, sluggish feeling is driven by blood sugar swings.

Wine, especially dry red wine, has virtually no residual sugar. During fermentation, yeast consumes the natural grape sugars. A standard glass of dry red often contains less than 1 gram of sugar.

Beer, on the other hand, contains maltose and residual starch, both of which break down quickly into glucose. This gives it a higher glycemic load, especially when consumed without food or in large quantities. Blood sugar spikes, insulin rises, and then comes the crash.

Alcohol itself makes this worse.

It inhibits gluconeogenesis, which is your liver’s ability to produce glucose when blood sugar runs low. That makes it harder for your body to recover once blood sugar drops.

This is why beer often leaves you drained and cloudy, even after just a couple.

Wine avoids about as much of that as possible. Less sugar spike. Less crash.

Antioxidants and Inflammation

Red wine contains polyphenols like resveratrol, quercetin, and anthocyanins.

These compounds have been studied for their role in reducing inflammation and protecting blood vessels.

Beer contains some antioxidants from hops and barley, but at much lower levels.

The process of filtration and pasteurization removes most of what might help.

If you’re going to drink, wine actually gives your body something to work with.

Hormonal Effects

Beer contains hops, and hops contain a compound called 8-prenylnaringenin.

It’s a powerful phytoestrogen, meaning it acts like estrogen in the body.

In high enough quantities, it can start shifting hormone levels.

Chronic beer consumption has been linked to lower testosterone, reduced libido, and, in some cases, increased body fat in areas like the manboob.

Wine doesn’t contain estrogenic compounds like this.

Some of the polyphenols in red wine may even slow down how fast your body breaks down testosterone. One lab study found a reduction in testosterone clearance by up to 70 percent.

Beer increases estrogen.

Wine slows testosterone loss.

Transparency and Sourcing

Neither beer nor wine is required to list all ingredients or additives on the label.

That means you're often drinking blind unless you know the producer.

With wine, it's usually easier to trace the origin.

There’s a stronger culture around knowing who grew the grapes and how the wine was made.

Beer doesn’t have that same emphasis on sourcing.

It’s possible, but less common.

If you want to drink better, ask questions and buy from people who can answer them.

Not all alcohol is created equal.

Beer gives you sugar spikes, estrogenic compounds, and fewer nutrients.

Wine gives you antioxidants, lower sugar, and for guys, a possible hormonal edge.

I’m not saying wine is a health drink.

But switching from beer to wine might actually make you feel better.

I’ve noticed it myself. I rarely drink beer anymore.

Curious if anyone else has had the same experience.

I have the privilege of speaking at my first German-speaking Bitcoin conference!

The only reaction I got from my friends: „Are you getting paid?”

Like… people … hello? I'm speaking at a conference at all?! 😱🥹

Are there still places with vibes anymore? Or did the internet kind of kill it?

I feel like digital spaces have vibes. Nostr has a vibe for sure, but everywhere I go (in America at least) feels flat, steril and homogenous now.

People like to pretend otherwise, romanticizing local charm and it’s fun to do so, but in reality there is no meaningful difference between New York, LA, Chicago, Austin, Miami etc…

The differences feel increasingly superficial. Miami with its neon pink and bad Latin art. New York with its identical minimalist cafes selling identical oat lattes. These aren’t cities anymore, they’re brands. “Keep Austin Weird” feels less like the rallying cry of a bohemian collective and more like a safe corporate brand slogan.

It wasn’t always like this. Cities used to incubate true subcultures that couldn’t thrive anywhere else. Seattle once had grunge music emerging organically from local clubs, distinct in sound and attitude. Detroit was a birthplace for techno and industrial grit that couldn’t have been manufactured. New Orleans had jazz clubs and vibrant local traditions that permeated every street corner authentically. Before the internet collapsed distances, you could sense deep authenticity upon arriving somewhere new. The vibe wasn’t something designed by marketing departments; it was organically woven into the streets, the people, the music, and local myths.

Now, vibes feel engineered and commoditized, reduced to Instagrammable moments and easily replicable aesthetics. I once watched from the balcony of my hotel in Nashville as 200 women waited in line to take the same stupid picture with the same stupid set of angel wings.

Digital spaces, ironically, have become refuges of uniqueness, fostering communities unburdened by geographical homogenization. Platforms like nostr host unique niche communities, from hyper-specific gaming bitcoin cultural milieu to obscure philosophical discussions, that retain genuinely distinctive vibes.

Perhaps we’re now entering a strange inversion, where real-world spaces chase digital popularity, adopting blandness to maximize broad appeal.

In this inversion, digital worlds might become the primary spaces where unique vibes survive, thrive, and multiply—leaving our physical world as little more than a flattened reflection of what used to be.

Nostr is where the vibes are at.

I didn’t try live ants but supposedly they taste like lemon drops.

It didn’t make the cut but I ate a live mealworm. GNARLY stuff, couldn’t imagine doing them live for multiple days…

Thanks for the words of inspiration Jeff! Gonna turn it all around 🫡