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People who consumed a pint daily reduced their risk of heart disease by 31%, a study finds.

For years, wine drinkers have indulged without guilt, reveling in the news that red wine can help protect against heart disease. Recent research shows that beer can also be good for what ails you, from reducing risk for broken bones to helping warding off diabetes and mental decline. It can even increase longevity, a large study suggests.

However, the key to tapping into beer’s benefits is moderation, meaning just one 12-ounce beer per day for women and two for men. Heavy drinking ups the threat of liver damage, some cancers, and heart problems. Bingeing on brewskis can also make you fat, since a 12-ounce regular beer has about 150 calories, while light beer has about 100.

Read more: 10 Surprising Health Benefits of Beer

This pesky insect is 15 per cent more likely to fly around people after they’ve consumed this beverage.

It might be nice enough to enjoy a pint outside in your part of Canada, but news that mosquitoes are likely to target people with beer in their systems might make you re-think enjoying your favorite patio.

Or at least apply some bug repellent before you head out.

A study, conducted by scientists at the IRD Research Centre in France, shows that insects are 15 per cent more likely to fly toward humans after they have consumed a pint.

The researchers write in Plos One that one possible explanation is, “Mosquitoes may have evolved preferences for people who recently consumed beer – possibly due to reduced host defensive behaviours or highly-nutritious blood-meals.”

Read more: Mosquitoes more attracted to beer drinkers: study

THERE are some who thought, prematurely, that 2010 was New York’s summer of the beer garden, what with the World Cup and the opening of a half-dozen outdoor, German-style drinking establishments. But not unlike some genetically altered superweed, these ale-and-oompah joints have continued even this year to crop up everywhere you look. They have grown so thick, so fast, that certain neighborhoods (Astoria in Queens and Williamsburg in Brooklyn come to mind) could, with the proper vantage and the help of several pilsners, be mistaken for Bavaria.

It would seem that last summer’s sprouting of beer gardens is about to turn into this summer’s beer garden jungle.

There are now no fewer than 54 beer gardens in the city, according to Beer Gardens NYC, a nine-month-old iPhone application dedicated to tracking the phenomenon, and that does not include some that have been announced but are not yet open.

Read more: Beer Gardens Everywhere

Nearly every province mandates minimum prices for the stuff

Canadians find beer an endlessly interesting topic. We enjoy drinking it, brewing it, watching ads for it and even following the delivery of equipment used to make it. Consider, for example, the daily press coverage of the recent transportation of six massive beer fermenters, each seven metres high and capable of holding one million bottles of beer, to the Molson Coors brewery in Toronto. The $24-million operation required shutting down several highways and lifting 1,600 service wires: it also had its own logo, website and Twitter feed. Despite all this fermented fascination, however, there’s one aspect of beer in Canada that receives far too little attention: the fact that nearly every province mandates minimum prices for the stuff. These policies stifle competition and choice and force all Canadians to pay more than they should for their favourite alcoholic beverage.

The issue of minimum beer prices made a rare appearance in the news last week with reports that the Quebec Brewers Association is lobbying the provincial government for a bigger boost in the floor price of beer. Quebec’s minimum price is reviewed annually and adjusted for inflation. The brewers, however, are arguing beer prices should be hiked by more than the national consumer price index. At current rates, they warn, beer will soon be cheaper than milk. We can only hope.

Read more: Why is your government standing in the way of cheaper beer?

A Dutch brewer with a penchant for competition has laid claim to creating the world’s strongest brew: a beer that is some 60 percent alcohol by volume.

“You don’t drink it like beer, but like a cocktail — in a nice whisky or cognac glass,” brewer Jan Nijboer told Dutch news agency ANP.

Read  more here: Brewer claims world’s strongest beer

Though I’ve lived in New York for nearly 10 years, I’m a Midwesterner at heart. I’m proud of my Dayton, Ohio, heritage, even if it requires me to answer asinine questions. “Did you grow up with cows on a farm?” is a common inquiry, one that requires me to point out that the metropolitan area has nearly 1 million residents — of whom very few moo.

Read more here: Nebraska Brewing’s Mélange à Trois – Beer of the Week

Winnipeg football fans have been put on notice: start a beer-cup snake, and you may be forced to slither out of the stadium.

The Canadian Football League club is clamping down after an incident last Friday that saw fans in one section stack thousands of used beer cups into a snake-like form that eventually stretched over dozens of rows. Others pitched in — literally — by tossing cups from behind and above, creating a sudsy plastic downpour.

Read more here: Zero tolerance for beer snake: Bombers