A new study finds that drinking beer makes men smarter:

Beer makes men smarter.

So say researchers at the University of Illinois in Chicago.

They found that men with a couple beers under their belts were actually better at solving brain-teasers than their sober counterparts.

To reach that surprising conclusion, the researchers devised a bar game in which 40 men were given three words and told to come up with a fourth that fits the pattern.

For example, the word “cheese” could fit with words like “blue” or “cottage” or “Swiss.”

Half the players were given two pints. The other half got nothing.

The result? Those who imbibed solved 40% more of the problems that their sober counterparts.

Also, the drinkers finished their problems in 12 seconds while it took the non-drinkers 15.5 seconds.

“We found at 0.07 blood alcohol, people were worse at working memory tasks, but they were better at creative problem-solving tasks,” psychologistJennifer Wiley reported on the Federation of Associations in Behavioral and Brain Sciences (FABBS) site.

The article went on to state that this may be why some heavy drinkers are brilliant scribblers. Actually, back in the days before clean water, lots of folks drank beer with breakfast. I somehow doubt that I can convince Dr. A that this is a good idea; except, that is, on Fat Tuesday…