It’s true: beer makes us happy. We know that now because German researchers, of course, searched a database of 13,000 molecules, looking for those that stimulate the dopamine D2 recepter, and found the most promising candidate to be hordenine, a chemical compound found in malted barley and beer. Wait, it gets better: According to researchers at the Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg, “In contrast with dopamine, hordenine activates the receptor solely through G proteins, potentially leading to a more prolonged effect on the reward centre of the brain.” So yes, beer doesn’t just make you happy, it makes you happy longer than ordinary sources of dopamine.
I just knew it!