A new study suggests that beers containing plenty of hops or pale barley malts could promote better bone health thanks to their dietary silicon content.
Previous studies have established that beer is an important source of bioavailable silicon, but little research has been done to find out which beers to contain the most silicon. Beer contains silicon in the soluble form of orthosilicic acid (OSA), which yields 50 percent bioavailability, making it a major contributor to silicon intake in the Western diet.
Beers full of hops were found to be particularly good sources of silicon. Some were found to contain as much as four times more silicon than is found in malt. Looking more closely at malt, the researchers said barley is a better source than wheat. As for the malting process itself, pale colored barley malts were found to contain higher levels of silicon than darker varieties because they face less heat stress.