Hormones
Does Beer Lower Testosterone? What Three Beers a Day Did in a Controlled Trial
The comparison drink in the key trial was non-alcoholic beer, which settles the hops question and most of the rest. Here is the honest read.
Does beer lower testosterone? Yes, a little, if you drink it daily. In a controlled trial, middle-aged men who drank about three beers a day with dinner for three weeks ended up with testosterone about 7 percent lower than when they drank the same amount of non-alcoholic beer (Sierksma et al., 2004). That is a real drop, and it is also a modest one. It is not the hormonal crash the internet likes to describe.
The more useful finding is hiding in how that trial was built. The comparison drink was also beer, hops and all, just without the alcohol. So the drop came from the alcohol, not from anything special about beer. That clears up the hops and estrogen question, the non-alcoholic beer question, and most of what men actually want to know. This is education, not medical advice.
Does beer lower testosterone? The trial that answers it
Researchers in the Netherlands ran a randomized crossover study in 10 healthy, middle-aged men who were already moderate drinkers, plus 9 postmenopausal women. For two separate three-week blocks, everyone drank either regular beer or non-alcoholic beer with dinner. The whole diet was supplied, so food stayed the same across both blocks, and there was a week with no alcohol before each one (Sierksma et al., 2004).
During the beer weeks the men took in 40 grams of alcohol a day. A standard US drink is 14 grams, so that is just under three regular beers every night.
The result: testosterone in the men fell by 6.8 percent compared with the non-alcoholic weeks. The confidence interval ran from about 1 to 12.5 percent, so the drop was real but its exact size is fuzzy in a group this small. Estradiol, the main estrogen, did not change at all. HDL cholesterol rose by 11.7 percent and DHEAS rose by 16.5 percent (Sierksma et al., 2004).
Read that plainly. Three beers a day, every day, nudged testosterone down a few percent and did not raise estrogen. That is a reason to keep daily drinking in check. It is not a reason to panic about a Friday pint.
How many beers lower testosterone?
Nobody has run a clean trial at one, two, three and six beers, so there is no exact line. What exists points to a dose effect. The full picture across the research is laid out in our breakdown of what drinking really does to a man's hormones at each dose, and a 2023 review sums it up well: a low to moderate amount tends to raise testosterone briefly, while a large amount, especially over the long term, lowers it through stress hormone activity, inflammation and oxidative stress (Smith et al., 2023).
A fair practical reading:
- One or two beers, now and then: no good evidence of harm to testosterone.
- About three a day, every day: a small, measurable drop in a controlled trial (Sierksma et al., 2004).
- Heavy nights, or heavy weeks as a habit: this is where the real damage shows up (Smith et al., 2023).
Does one beer lower testosterone?
Not in any meaningful way. A single low dose of alcohol can actually push testosterone up for a short while. In a placebo-controlled crossover trial in 13 men, a dose of 0.5 grams of alcohol per kilogram of body weight raised blood testosterone from 13.5 to 16.0 nmol/L. The effect disappeared when the researchers blocked alcohol metabolism in the liver, which shows it is a side effect of how the liver handles alcohol, not a benefit (Sarkola and Eriksson, 2003).
So one beer is not a testosterone problem, and it is not a testosterone booster either. It is basically a wash.
Does beer have estrogen in it?
Beer contains a plant compound that acts like estrogen, and this is where the "beer turns men soft" story comes from. The compound is 8-prenylnaringenin, or 8-PN, and it comes from hops. Researchers who first identified it found it is more potent than other established plant estrogens. They also measured it in beer and concluded the levels are low and should not pose any cause for concern (Milligan et al., 1999).
A follow-up study from the same group found the hormone effects of hops come almost entirely from that one compound, and that none of the hop compounds tested showed any androgen-like or progesterone-like activity (Milligan et al., 2000).
For scale, when researchers wanted to see what 8-PN does in people, they gave postmenopausal women single doses of 50, 250 and 750 milligrams of the purified compound. Only the 750 milligram dose moved a reproductive hormone, lowering LH by about 17 percent (Rad et al., 2006). You are not getting anything close to that from a pint.
The best evidence is the trial above. Men drinking non-alcoholic beer got the same hops as the men drinking regular beer, and estradiol did not change with the alcoholic version (Sierksma et al., 2004). If hops were driving estrogen up in men, that is the study where it would have shown.
Is it the beer or the alcohol?
The alcohol. Since both arms of the Sierksma trial drank beer, the only real difference was the alcohol, and that difference is what moved testosterone. Wine and spirits at the same alcohol dose would be expected to do the same thing, because the mechanisms the research describes run through alcohol itself (Smith et al., 2023).
There is one beer-specific issue, and it is calories rather than hormones. Beer is an easy way to drink a few hundred calories without noticing, often late in the evening, and extra body fat is one of the things that works against testosterone over time. That is part of the short list of habits that actually move testosterone.
Does non-alcoholic beer lower testosterone?
There is no evidence it does. It was the control drink in the trial above, the drink testosterone was measured against (Sierksma et al., 2004).
It is not a free pass for your waistline, though. A 2025 randomized trial had 44 healthy young men drink 660 mL a day of a non-alcoholic pilsner, a non-alcoholic mixed beer, a non-alcoholic wheat beer, or water for four weeks. The mixed beer raised fasting glucose and triglycerides, and the wheat beer raised insulin and triglycerides. The pilsner and water groups saw cholesterol and LDL come down. The authors put the difference down to sugar and calories, not the plant compounds (Kreimeyer et al., 2025). That trial did not measure testosterone, so it tells you about metabolism, not hormones. The practical takeaway: if you switch, a non-alcoholic pilsner is the better pick than the sweet styles.
Beer and testosterone for men over 40
The men in the Sierksma trial were middle-aged, so the 7 percent result applies directly to you. What changes after 40 is the margin. Testosterone drifts down slowly with age, and the things that compound the drop, poor sleep, a growing waist, and nightly drinking, tend to arrive together.
Sleep is the one men miss. Alcohol at any dose delays your first REM period, and at moderate and high doses it cuts total REM and breaks up the second half of the night (Ebrahim et al., 2013). Most of your daily testosterone is made during sleep, which is why what the sleep-restriction studies did to testosterone is worth knowing if you like a beer late in the evening. Moving that beer to earlier in the evening is an easy win.
If you are over 40 and genuinely worried about your levels, get tested properly rather than guessing from how you feel. A morning blood draw, repeated, is the standard, and our guide to who actually qualifies for testosterone therapy and what the trials show covers the rest. That conversation belongs with your doctor.
What to actually do
- Keep beer out of the daily column. A few a week is not a hormone problem. Three a night, every night, is where the measurable drop starts.
- Stop worrying about hops. The estrogen compound in beer is real, and the amount in your glass is not.
- Drink earlier, not later. Alcohol close to bed costs you sleep quality, and sleep is where testosterone is made.
- Count the calories. The beer belly is mostly an intake problem, and why belly fat gets harder to lose after 35 has the levers that actually shift it.
- If you swap to non-alcoholic, pick a pilsner. The sweeter styles carry the sugar.
More on the rest of this topic in our hormones coverage.
The verdict
Beer does lower testosterone, but only modestly and only when you drink it daily. About three beers a night for three weeks cut testosterone by roughly 7 percent in middle-aged men, with no change in estrogen. The alcohol did it, not the hops, because the comparison drink was non-alcoholic beer. One beer is a wash, non-alcoholic beer has no evidence against it, and the biggest real costs of regular drinking are the sleep and the calories. Keep it occasional and keep it early, and beer is not what stands between you and your testosterone.
References
- Sierksma A, Sarkola T, Eriksson CJP, et al. Effect of moderate alcohol consumption on plasma dehydroepiandrosterone sulfate, testosterone, and estradiol levels in middle-aged men and postmenopausal women: a diet-controlled intervention study. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2004. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15166654/
- Smith SJ, Lopresti AL, Fairchild TJ. The effects of alcohol on testosterone synthesis in men: a review. Expert Rev Endocrinol Metab. 2023. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36880700/
- Sarkola T, Eriksson CJP. Testosterone increases in men after a low dose of alcohol. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2003. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/12711931/
- Milligan SR, Kalita JC, Heyerick A, et al. Identification of a potent phytoestrogen in hops (Humulus lupulus L.) and beer. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 1999. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/10372741/
- Milligan SR, Kalita JC, Pocock V, et al. The endocrine activities of 8-prenylnaringenin and related hop (Humulus lupulus L.) flavonoids. J Clin Endocrinol Metab. 2000. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/11134162/
- Rad M, Humpel M, Schaefer O, et al. Pharmacokinetics and systemic endocrine effects of the phyto-oestrogen 8-prenylnaringenin after single oral doses to postmenopausal women. Br J Clin Pharmacol. 2006. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/16934044/
- Kreimeyer H, Sydor S, Buchholz L, et al. Non-alcoholic beer influences glucose and lipid metabolism and changes body composition in healthy, young, male adults. Nutrients. 2025. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/40431365/
- Ebrahim IO, Shapiro CM, Williams AJ, Fenwick PB. Alcohol and sleep I: effects on normal sleep. Alcohol Clin Exp Res. 2013. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23347102/
Common questions
Does beer lower testosterone?
Daily beer drinking does lower testosterone, modestly. In a randomized crossover trial, middle-aged men who drank about three beers a day (40 g of alcohol) for three weeks had testosterone 6.8 percent lower than when they drank non-alcoholic beer, with no change in estradiol (Sierksma et al., 2004). Occasional beer has no good evidence of harm.
How many beers a day lower testosterone?
There is no exact threshold, but about three standard beers a day produced a small measurable drop in a controlled trial (Sierksma et al., 2004). The larger, lasting effects show up with heavy and chronic drinking (Smith et al., 2023).
Does beer increase estrogen in men?
Beer did not increase estrogen in men in the trial that tested it. Estradiol did not change when men drank regular beer daily for three weeks (Sierksma et al., 2004). Hops contain a potent plant estrogen, 8-prenylnaringenin, but the researchers who identified it found the levels in beer are low and not a cause for concern (Milligan et al., 1999).
Does non-alcoholic beer lower testosterone?
There is no evidence it does. It was the comparison drink in the main trial, and testosterone was lower on regular beer, not on the non-alcoholic version (Sierksma et al., 2004). Sweeter non-alcoholic styles did raise glucose and triglycerides in a four-week trial in young men, so a pilsner is the better choice (Kreimeyer et al., 2025).
Is beer worse for testosterone than wine or liquor?
Beer is not worse than wine or liquor for testosterone itself. The drop in the key trial came from the alcohol, since both drinks were beer. At the same alcohol dose, other drinks would be expected to act the same way. Beer can carry more calories per drinking session, which matters for body fat over time.
Will quitting beer raise my testosterone?
If you drink heavily or daily, cutting back removes a real drag on testosterone and on sleep quality (Smith et al., 2023; Ebrahim et al., 2013). If you drink a few beers a week, quitting is unlikely to change your levels much. If you suspect low testosterone, get a proper morning blood test with your doctor.
