Calories In Beer

And other health-ish stuff

How many calories are in Irish Death? It’s a question people ask but don’t really want to know the answer to. I’ll admit I didn’t know the answer myself until I had to return a voicemail from a fan who posed the question.

You know who is wise about stuff like this? Our beer guru Rikki. Sure enough, she had the answer, so armed with that knowledge I called up our fan (who was off fighting fires or something like that for reals) and left him a message.

I think I said something like “Hi there, Nicole from Iron Horse Brewery here. I am returning your call with the information about our Irish Death calorie count. It’s got ______ calories and ___ carbs. But you can totally forget everything I just said and pretend like this never happened so you still feel good about drinking our beer.”

I received a voicemail back (I’m really good at phone tag btw) where our fan said “You’re right, I will forget everything you said except have a good day. … I’ll continue to drink it even though it’s not helping my diet.”

You might be wondering why I left the calorie and carb count out above. It’s because I wanted to give you the chance to click away if you didn’t really want to know. Are you ready? Do you promise you won’t stop drinking our beer once you find out? Are you sure you want to know? If not just hover over that little x in the upper right hand corner of your browser window and click it to escape immediately.

OK, here you go. A 12-ounce can of Irish Death has 256 calories and 22 carbs. From a calorie perspective that’s the equivalent of 6.4 thin mint cookies or 3.2 medium sized Fuji apples. I can tell you I would choose an Irish Death over both of those options because the cookies wouldn’t last nearly as long as a beer, and who wants to eat 3 apples in one sitting? Not me. Probably nobody. Unless it’s in pie.

Now, you might be thinking wow, I’m going to have to walk on a treadmill for an hour for that one beer. Well, one idea to help is to walk to the brewery and back home. Boom, there’s some extra walking. Or maybe play some cornhole at [ the pub ]. Or maybe you just quit worrying about it and drink the damn beer you love.

To put these numbers perspective we also looked at some other popular beers.

Irish Death: 256 calories (12 oz)

Guinness: 125 (12 oz)

High Five Hefe: 187 calories (12 oz)

Widmer Hefe: 154 calories (12 oz)

Hand Cannon IPA: 204 calories (12 oz)

Ninkasi Total Domination IPA: 212 calories (12 oz)

Fremont Brewing Lush IPA: 220 calories (12 oz)

Life Behind Bars: 177 calories (12 oz)

Good beer is worth the calories. Support your local or regional breweries and make your calories mean something. Don’t waste them on big beer. Trust us, the taste is better and so is the attitude.

Other health related questions you might have:

Are your beers gluten free?

No.

Are your beers vegan?

Yes, the majority of Iron Horse Brewery beers are vegan. We recommend staying away from High Five Hefe which has honey and Cozy Sweater which has lactose. To learn more about vegan beer and what non-vegan ingredients are frequently found in beer, check out this blog written by our former resident vegan who is off fighting isis now with the U.S. Army or so we imagine. 

Do you have vegan food options at [ the pub ]?

We support you in your quest to eat non-meat, non-dairy items for whatever reason you choose, which is of course none of our business. That’s why we added Something Vegan to the menu at [ the pub ]. It’s a rotating vegan dish that varies depending on the Earth and what produce is available.

Other vegan options include the beer pretzel and the quinoa salad featuring black beans, corn kernels, quinoa, grilled zucchini, roma tomatoes, red onion, and cilantro topped with a jalapeno-avocado dressing. The Thai curry soup features broccoli, red onion, peppers, carrots, kale, red curry and coconut milk, seasoned and combined with rice noodles.