About 5 or 6 years ago, I began noticing an allergic reaction to something I was eating. It took a while, but I determined that the culprit was macadamia nuts. Wierd… I can eat any other type of nut and nothing happens, but macadamia nuts make my throat swell up and this makes it hard to swallow.

A few years later, I was enjoying a homebrewed beer at a party… and I started getting an itchy/scratchy feeling in my throat. I scratched my head and switched to a different beer.

Sometime after that, I was eating some dried apricots at my parent’s place… same thing happened. And then a few months after that, I was having a micro brew (forget the name) at the folks’ place and it struck once again. My mom suggested I take a Benadryl… and I was fine within 30 minutes. (mom’s have that keen sense of medical knowledge for these sorts of things, isn’t it boggling?)

Jump to a few weeks ago… sitting at Goat Hill with our neighbors. We’re enjoying a pitcher of heferweizen, yackin about who knows what. Almost immediately, I notice my throat swelling. I stop drinking and just chill for a few minutes, but it’s getting worse. Melanie suggests we go to the Sav-On across the street to get some Benadryl. (DUH! I totally forgot that was a remedy)

I shoot over there, get a bottle of water and a box of my new friend Mr. Anti-histamine. Reading the label… it says “avoid alcohol” in the warnings section. “Hmmm…. I’m going back to the bar… I better take only one of these”. I did my best to avoid the alcohol, but it was right there in front of me… a shiney, golden pint of Heinekin… and it kept calling my name (strange).

I was in a funk for a good 2 hours. My throat swelling dissipated, but the dizzying effect of the anti-histamine made for a mellow Neil.

… anyways … back to the darkness that is the stout in my subject of this post.

At the bonfire party that we had for my birthday, our friends Stacy and Greg brought me a 4 pack of the black satin (draught) in tall cans. I put them in one of the ice chests and started hand spinning one to get it chilled quickly (takes about 2 minutes). I began nursing it after carefully pouring it into the ubiquitous red plastic party cup. After a few minutes I noticed my throat swelling … not quite as bad as the hefeweizen at the bar. I wakled to the car and took a Benadryl (I keep a few in there now, just in case of moments like this) … and went back to the firepit and stared into the rest of the half empty cup of stout.

I’m hoping that this reaction to Guinness is limited to the draught variety. I guess I’ll have to test it out the next time we’re at a bar with it on tap. I’ve never noticed it before when drinking it from tap… but, this allergy may be morphing and causing me to react to more varieties of food/drinks.

So, I’ll be making an appointment to see my doctor about getting this checked out. From what I’ve read, it seems that this type of allergy can develop into more severe reactions, including anaphylaxis (scary).

… stay tuned …