CBD Beer: What It Is & Why You Should Drink It
Beer is as part of Western culture as the Magna Carta, and it goes back in human history just as long as cannabis. In fact, Cannabis sativa and the hops plant from which beer is made are close genetic cousins, leading to crossovers of hoppy terpenes like humulene.
Now, cannabis producers and beer brewers are bringing these two long-lost relations closer than ever before. Welcome to the world of CBD beer — learn what it is, where to find it, and why it might be worth a try.
Does CBD beer have alcohol?
That depends. If you’re buying it from a dispensary, the answer is “no.” If you’re buying it from a bar, though, the answer is probably “yes.”
State laws universally prohibit THC producers from adding alcohol to their beverages — agencies want to keep alcohol and cannabis as separate as possible for the time being.
Bars around the country, though, have taken to adding CBD to beer as a gimmick. Some bars might sell non-alcoholic beers with CBD, but if it’s on tap or a house brew and there’s CBD in it, chances are that there’s alcohol involved as well.
Does CBD beer have THC?
Some CBD beers may contain up to 0.3% THC, the federal legal limit for delta 9 THC in hemp products. At this concentration, however, THC won’t get you high even though it might slightly enhance the effects of CBD.
If you want beer with THC, many recreational and medical cannabis states can suit your fancy. Just remember that getting “crunk” is not for the weak of heart.
What will a CBD drink do to me?
A CBD drink will not get you high, and unless it contains alcohol, it will not intoxicate you in any way. CBD is a mild, relaxing cannabinoid that doesn’t cause anxiety or paranoia. Scientists haven’t been able to identify any habit-forming properties of CBD, and this cannabinoid might be beneficial to human health in a wide variety of ways.
Does CBD beer get you high?
Unless you bought it from a cannabis dispensary and it’s labeled as containing THC, a CBD beer should not get you high. By law, CBD products must contain THC concentrations so low they couldn’t possibly cause intoxication.
Does CBD help anxiety immediately?
If you want to experience the effects of CBD quickly, drinking or any other form of oral ingestion probably isn’t the way to do it. Taking a stiff drink of “liquid courage” is one way people tackle anxiety, but any CBD you drink will take around 30 minutes to kick in.
Why does CBD take so long to kick in when you start feeling the effects of alcohol almost immediately? That’s because alcohol is a type of substance that absorbs into your body’s tissues (and, therefore, your bloodstream) almost immediately. As a lipid (oil), CBD takes longer to make its way to your central nervous system.
A lot of research has been poured into the subject of CBD and anxiety. So far, though, no CBD-based drugs have been approved for anxiety, and we can’t say much about this cannabinoid’s potential to help with medical conditions in general.
What does CBD beer taste like?
CBD beer shouldn’t taste remarkably different from normal beer. The flavor of hops and alcohol is already so strong that it drowns pretty much everything else out, and most CBD beers contain isolate or distillate hemp extract anyway, which doesn’t have much of a taste.
One exception might be non-alcoholic CBD beers you buy online or from a dispensary. They still contain hops, but the absence of alcohol might make the presence of hemp extract more apparent.
Where can I drink CBD beer?
If you live in a reasonably populated area, it’s highly likely that a bar near you serves CBD-infused beer. Most places around the country have adopted an accepting stance toward hemp even if they’re still skeptical about cannabis.
That option might not be available to you, in which case you could avail yourself of hemp-infused but non-alcoholic beers that are starting to crop up on the internet. Or, you can go the old-fashioned route by adding CBD to beer yourself.
Can you make CBD beer?
Absolutely. Brewing your own CBD beer might be a bridge too far, but there are plenty of ways to infuse beer with CBD from home. You can even take your favorite CBD tincture or isolate powder with you to the bar. Just make sure to tell people what you’re spiking their drinks with before any confusion crops up.
Can you infuse beer with CBD?
There are a few different ways to add CBD to beer. Let’s cover them each in turn:
- Use a CBD tincture: While it’s sort of messy and doesn’t disperse that well, the droppers most CBD tinctures come with make it easy to add CBD to any drink with this method.
- Use CBD isolate: In powder form, the only issue with adding CBD isolate to your drink is onlookers confusing it for an illicit substance.
- Use hemp flower: Long and hard but worth it, this road is for the true hemp drink connoisseur.
How to make CBD beer with hemp flower
If you want to take the connoisseur approach and be your own bartender, it’s not as difficult as you’d think to infuse beer with CBD oil you’ve made yourself with Secret Nature hemp flower. Start by equipping yourself with some hemp buds and following our CBD flower coconut oil recipe.
You can use any strain of Secret Nature flower you like, and you might want to choose a strain with extra humulene to accentuate the hops in your beer. Then, simply take a dropper, and add your (warm) coconut oil to your beer.
Consider stirring the mixture a few times before slamming it down. Lazy zippers will find all their homemade CBD oil at the bottoms of their glasses, somewhat defeating the purpose of putting CBD in your beer in the first place.
Does CBD beer have side effects?
There’s some reason to be concerned about drinking CBD beer in high concentrations, but the same goes for normal beer. Both CBD and alcohol are dependent on your liver’s CYP3A4 enzymes for metabolism, potentially reducing the threshold for alcohol overdose slightly as well as potentially enhancing the effects of alcohol.
