If not, perhaps it’s just as well, because scientists say that even the taste of beer (without the intoxicating effects of alcohol) can trigger that flow of striatal dopamine in the brain. To see how the taste of beer affects the brain, researchers gave a group of men tiny tastes of beer, and as the men sipped the beer, the researchers scanned the men’s brains. The effect was more pronounced in participants who had a family history of alcoholism. The findings, published online Monday in the journal Neuropsychopharmacology, "demonstrate for the first time the important role of an alcoholic drink's flavor, absent alcohol’s pharmacological effects," the study authors wrote. Dopamine, a brain chemical widely associated with pleasure, has long been linked to the consumption of alcohol and other drugs. [11 Interesting Facts About Hangovers] 
 
 In the study, researchers gave 49 male volunteers a tiny taste (half an ounce, or 15 milliliters) of their favorite beer over the course of 15 minutes — enough to taste the beer but not enough to cause a change in blood-alcohol level or intoxication. To study the effect of beer's taste on dopamine receptors, the researchers scanned the volunteers' brains using Positron Emission Tomography, which uses the radiation emitted by a radioactive chemical to produce a 3D image of the brain. The scans revealed higher increases in dopamine after the men tasted beer compared with tasting the sports drink or water — suggesting that the taste of alcohol is enough to prompt a pleasurable response in the brain. Furthermore, the men who had a family history of alcoholism showed an even greater spike in dopamine levels after they tasted the beer, so the dopamine response may be a heritable risk factor for alcoholism. Follow Tanya Lewis on Twitter and Google+.
– Beer drinkers start feeling happy at the smallest sip, even before any alcohol registers, a new study suggests. Indiana University researchers found that dopamine levels in the brain rose when drinkers had just a tiny amount of beer, before any alcohol buzz was possible, reports LiveScience. The not-so-funny part: Dopamine levels shot up the most in those who had a family history of alcoholism, suggesting that some kind of hereditary risk factor was at play, reports the Los Angeles Times. "We believe this is the first experiment in humans to show that the taste of an alcoholic drink alone, without any intoxicating effect from the alcohol, can elicit this dopamine activity in the brain's reward centers," says the lead author. If the connection to those with a family history of alcoholism holds true, the dopamine test might help gauge the vulnerability of those predisposed to alcohol abuse.