There are some questions that man will always wonder about. What came first—the chicken or the egg? What happened to Amelia Earhart? Was the moon landing faked? Who killed JFK? What on Earth was George Lucas thinking when he made those dreadful Star Wars prequels?

Sadly, we will probably never know the answer to those questions. But there is one question that is not hard to answer. Many may not consider it a mystery at all, but we now have scientific proof:

Does drinking beer make you a more creative person?

Ask any guy that ever played high school football, and he’ll say yes without hesitation. It’s because of beer that he scored four touchdowns in the ‘big game’ whenever he tells the story when in reality he played on the offensive line and never touched the ball.

It’s because of beer that the pretty girl whose phone number he got last night thinks he owns a chain of tanning salons when he actually just cleans the tanning beds after people use them.

It’s because of beer that he once caught the Loch Ness monster, Bigfoot, and Puff the Magic Dragon during his last camping trip.

Yes, all those wonderful tales and those ‘crazy’ dance moves that everyone thought were ‘sick’ are due to the creative juices a few cold beers let loose. But does beer really boost creativity? Or were those stories inside him all along?

According to science—yes. Yes, it does.

Scientist in Austria published a study in Consciousness and Cognition last year about the effect beer has on creativity. In it, they found that the poor souls in the placebo group (no beer) did not perform as well in a given task than those in the mildly-intoxicated group.

One of the leads on the study, Dr. Mathias Benedek, offered a couple of theories as to why that happened in the study:

“The first being that when you are really focusing on solving a problem, you can become fixated so that your mind gets stuck on one way of addressing it. Alcohol makes it more difficult to keep all the parameters of the task in mind, but that can also help you come at it from another direction.

"The second theory is that alcohol, which is distracting from the central task, allows you to tap into your unconscious mind and find alternative solutions.”

But this is just one study, and it comes from a country known for making beer. Of course, they’d say beer promotes creativity! Has anyone else studied the effects in a proper scientific environment?

As it turns out-- yes. Another study published in the same journal in 2014 found that a blood alcohol content of .075 boosted creativity:

Moderate intoxication—a blood alcohol content of about 0.075—improves problem-solving and leads to what participants in the Consciousness and Cognition study referred to as “sudden insights,” which the sober participants reported significantly less often.

A study conducted at the University of Illinois in 2013 found that a BAC of .07 was the magic number:

"In this study, both groups found the same number of changes, but the people who had been drinking found them faster.

"The drunk people are just relaxing, and the change popped out to them.

So, guys, the next time you are struggling to come up with a ‘can't-miss’ anniversary present, Kraken to a Cold One. Need to figure out how to get that new big screen TV in time for the Super Bowl? The Best Things in Life Aren’t Free. But a Gluten Full Blonde Ale could help you figure it out.

Not sure if an outfit looks good? Remember that Beauty is in the Eye of the Beer Holder—and grab a Low Brow Brown Ale.

Feeling anxious about meeting the in-laws? Take a Chill, relax, and let them in.

Don’t stifle your creativity—drink a NoCoast Beer today!