Below, the effects of drinking beer in the sun:

Beer is currently the king of hot summer day beverages, and for good reason.

A cold glass bottle on a blazing afternoon feels refreshing just to hold, let alone swig from, and a few beers properly spaced out provide a lazy buzz which can be maintained for hours. Depending on the brand and drinker, beer tastes good and compliments everything from Doritos to popsicles to a steak sandwich.

But most of all, drinking beer at a summer bar-b-q counts as a classic American pastime on par with eating a chili cheese dog while wearing an American flag bikini, auditioning for American Idol, or daydreaming about winning the lottery. It’s just what we do here.

But at a certain point, (for me it was around age 24) most people come to admit that beer has issues which can no longer be overlooked.

For example, if you weigh over 110 lbs and care to catch and maintain a solid buzz at least once a week, choosing beer will eventually make you gain weight. Four bottles of Blue Moon, for example, provide the caloric equivalent of four and one third cans of Coke. Drinking four cans of coke in one afternoon is ill-advised and rather gross.

In addition, mosquitos apparently enjoy biting people after they’ve drunk at least one 12 ounce can of beer, and just as annoying, beer causes drinkers to pee extraordinary amounts of fluids, which can be frustrating to keep up with, and, when combined with the blazing summer sun can lead to dangerous levels of dehydration.

But for everything that’s wrong with beer, there’s something right with wine.

First, wine contains fewer calories and more alcohol allowing people to get drunk by imbibing less, which means they won’t pack on spare tires—at least not as quickly. A glass of dry white wine has about 85 calories in it, about half of what’s in a beer. Some studies, which I’m not sure I believe, even suggest that drinking a small amount of red wine before dinner can help people lose weight.

Sure, wine’s less “American,” but as long as you’re not drinking swill, sipping a crisp white wine on a hot day can be just as refreshing as holding a chilled beer.

But most interestingly the Telegraph now reports that drinking wine may actually help prevent sunburn. Apparently Spanish scientists found that “flavonoids in the grapes can stop the chemical reaction that causes cells to die and therefore skin damage.”

Dermatologists are already trying to create skin-care products and pills that will use these substances to help protect people from skin damage.

Of course, drinking tons of wine in the blazing heat could also lead to the same dehydrating side-effects as beer. But, if you start early, as in, while you’re still at home, you and your friends may wind up getting drunk enough fast enough to never leave your house and step out into the sun at all. In which case, you’ll never have to worry about looking like that guy.