Associated with merrymaking for thousands of years, a pint (or two or three) of a luscious dark beer is a very inviting way to quench those lusty holiday fires. Beer is warming, rich bodied, and really complements the cold weather. The right beer can be the perfect companion to holiday celebrations and intimate evenings spent getting cozy. In the frigid climate of Nepal, at parties beer is used to symbolically represent semen in drinking games because of its similar foaminess. Beer has long hailed a reputation for enhancing the hedonism of the college years; think glorified frat parties such as Animal House.

Beer was meant to be savored while unwinding, relaxing, and a plethora of other fun activities. So, it is only natural that beer goes hand in hand with sex! Almost all beer, even if only for its alcohol content, can be considered an aphrodisiac. However, with all the creative new variations on the traditional brew, with the availability of hundreds of microbrews, the aphrodisiac powers of beer are limitless.

Beer can be acquired almost anywhere in the world; its seduction is omnipresent. There is no other alcoholic beverage in the world that has been enjoyed as long, or remains as popular as beer. Beer has been enjoyed since ancient times, as the earliest records of it are from Mesopotamian and ancient Egyptian writings. The creation of beer is an extensive process, and it includes fermenting the starch from many different sources (grains, potatoes, corn, rice, and most of all, malted barley) combined with enzymes, and then flavored with herbs, fruit, and hops. Its brewing process is tedious and riddled with chemistry. To most discriminative connoisseurs, beer is considered more complex and intricate in flavor than wine.

From the brewery Hoegaarden, a spectacular brew lasciviously labeled as “Forbidden Fruit” was designed with pleasures of the flesh in mind. Its bottle bares a rendition of a painting of Adam and Eve, where Adam tempts Eve with a glass of beer, not the apple. This beer is brewed with coriander and orange peel, and is heavily laced with chocolate notes. And if all of these features were not enough to turn you on by way of your oral explorations alone, this beer is sure to get you giddy at a penetrating 9.0 percent in the alcohol department!

Love potion lost, in France a beer from the Fischer/Pecheur brewery was even created to be strictly an aphrodisiac brew, its translation in English was blatantly called “the beer of love.” It was brewed and blended with arousing herbs like ginger, ginseng, and myrrh. Unfortunately, its aphrodisiac powers did not stand the test of time, and has since disappeared.

Catherine the Great, the famed Russian Empress, had a reputation for being so sexually ravenous that she eventually grew bored of having sex with multitudes of men. In an attempt to satisfy her smoldering hunger, she turned to, shall we say, other sexual interests to satisfy her sexual needs. Myths and stories aside, Catherine was an avid beer aficionado with a passion for stouts and porters, and her favorite of all being Russian Imperial Stout. Because of her famously insatiable sex drive, this particular beer became known as an aphrodisiac by association alone.

Similarly, the types of beer with the most invigorating reputations are stouts and porters. These variations are deep in color, almost black, and give off a variety of flavors including chocolate and coffee: both also known to be aphrodisiacs. Beer is meant to be pleasurable and seductive. It is meant to warm, caress, fondle, and of course, stimulate your senses.

Throughout the world, deep, rich, dark beers are served to nursing mothers. Nursing is also considered an aphrodisiac to some, perhaps on the level of instinct, and is a sure-shot sign that a woman is fertile. As a nourishing cocktail meant to strengthen a breastfeeding woman, a stout is blended with a raw egg, spices, brandy, and milk. All of these ingredients added to the already potent stout beer are considered aphrodisiac in their own right, and this seemingly would create an explosive brew… and fed to a fecund woman, no wonder nursing mothers are considered to be so fertile! In the creation process of several stouts, lactose is added to deliver a creamy, yogurt-like aspect. Lacto Stout, hailing from the Mediterranean island of Malta, proudly seeks to enhance your physical well being with their lactose-enhanced beer by adding additional B vitamins to the brew. Instinct and childrearing aside, there are plenty of sensual aspects of dark beers to appreciate when stirring the libido.

Sweden shares with the world a national treasure: their Carnegie Porter. It has been long whispered as an aphrodisiac, and when paired with the infamously vigor-inducing oysters, it is a fail-proof turn on. Carnegie Porter is known for its layering of flavors which includes aromas of toffee, fruit, chocolate, roasted malts, brown sugar, and molasses. It tingles the mouth and even strokes your senses with the feeling of velvet. On the subject of oysters, there are even some stouts that are brewed involving the infusion of the fleshy little wonders. There is no doubt those brewmasters had the idea of provoking the sensual with their brews.

Perhaps the most acclaimed and famous of all the dark beers the world favors, is Guinness. Guinness is the deepest ruby in color, without the right light it looks opaquely black. It produces a creamy head, and is heavy in flavor, quite reminiscent of luxurious coffee. For over 240 years, this rich, dark stout has been enjoyed, and has maintained a reputation for keeping its patrons turned on.
Guinness is an Irish tradition spanning the globe. Throughout Africa, its reverence for being such a potent aphrodisiac is so high that many regard it as “black power.” In Africa, Guinness has also earned the nickname “Viagra” after that other little sexual enhancement aid due to its voracious reputation. “It makes me feel powerful," says Rasheed Adegbite, 46, who invests about a 10th of his weekly earnings as a driver on Guinness. “If I have three stouts, my wife knows she had better watch out. I have energy in my body." Sale of Guinness in Africa have even surpassed those of its homeland, Ireland, and neighboring England due to its universal aphrodisiac appeal. So popular throughout the world, Guinness is even brewed in Nigeria and as far away as Indonesia.

As arctic winds are quickly blowing into our part of the land, and the time for indoor fornication and celebrating grows more and more inviting. Should you be needing a semen substitute for some perverted communal game, or just a little dark, rich, foamy oral lubrication for some well-spent dynamic tension, beer is a salacious addition to one’s aphrodisiac pantry. Personally, as the wife of a beer enthusiast, one of the finest preambles to a good workout session in the bedroom has been a few pints of the always- attainable Guinness. Not to mention, it works just as well to mellow us out afterwards!