I started Weight Watchers a little less than a week ago. One thing that’s come up a lot is the topic of beer. I love beer. But beer is not a terribly friendly Weight Watchers food. Moreover, it’s pretty hard to find any definitive lists of PointsPlus values (i.e. the new system) for beer. So I’ve gone ahead and made one.

Here’s the things you have to know about beer, and how the points are calculated:

• Beer has zero fat
• Beer has zero cholesterol
• Beer has very little sugar
• Most beers don’t list their nutritional values, making it awful hard to calculate
• IMPORTANT: The majority of the calories in beer come from alcohol, which is not part of the standard PointsPlus formula. If you’ve tried to calculate the PointsPlus values for most beers, you’d come out with 1 or 2 points, since the fat/carbs/protein/fiber contents are all very low. So I’ve used the calorie count instead to come up with a general idea of the PointsPlus values for these beers.
• Don’t judge a beer by its color: darker beers don’t necessarily have more calories (but in my opinion they taste better!)
• PointsPlus rule of thumb: approximately 35-45 calories for every PointsPlus point. My calculations below are based on 40 points, then rounded to the nearest point value.
• I owe a huge debt to One More Pound for the great beer list and points guide found here, which I used to make my own chart.

The Weight Watchers Beer Cheat Sheet
(click link above to open the Google Doc)

Questions? Discrepancies? Please leave a comment. This is very much a first-draft right now.

Super Bowl Sunday, 2009. An explosion of bacon. Rather than using the sausage called for in the original recipe, I substituted a meatloaf mixture of ground beef. A-freaking-mazing.

Rarely have I ever seen such a diamond in the rough store as Galco’s Soda Pop Shop. Established in 1897, this incredible little place in Highland Park stocks more soda pop than you can shake a stick at. Grab yourself a root beer (or 2, or 20), and then mosey on down to the back of the store where they stock beers from around the world. I’ll be posting some of these as I drink them, but here are a few photos I shot while visiting the store.

tequila lime pomegranate cranberry sauce

• 2 12oz packages cranberries
• 2 cups sugar
• 2 cups water
• 1 cup pomegranate juice
• seeds from 1 whole pomegranate
• shot of tequila
• squirt of lime juice
• optional: large can pears in water/juice (not syrup)

combine water and sugar in large saucepan (i use a nonstick wok), bring to boil, stirring until sugar fully dissolves.  add cranberries and return to boil.  add pomegranate juice, pomegranate seeds, and tequila, (optionally pears) and lower heat to simmer.  simmer until liquid has reduced about 1/4, or to whatever consistency you like.  mix in lime juice to taste, then cool in refrigerator overnight.  sauce will thicken in refrigerator.

give thanks.  makes enough to feed a small army.