What follows are three weird news items. Well, sort of. Two of them are true…and one of them isn’t. Why? Because we made it up, that’s why! Can you guess which one is the phony? (The answer is at the end of the post.)

A.

In April, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau—the agency responsible for regulating alcoholic beverages in the U.S.—gave its approval to the commercial sale of a powdered alcohol product. The inventor of “Palcohol” said he went to the lab and created powdered booze because he wanted a way to have a cocktail after a hike but not have to carry a heavy, glass bottle of alcohol with him. Palcohol plans to sell six types of alcohol in solid, powdered form, including vodka, rum, Cosmopolitan, and Mojito. Or at least they would. A few days after issuing approval for this potentially easy way for people to get too drunk too fast, the Alcohol and Tobacco Tax and Trade Bureau rescinded its approval, saying that the approval was “an error.”

B.

Alcohol-free beer is a popular choice for recovering alcoholics or people who like the taste of beer but do not want to get inebriated. However, “near beer” isn’t completely free of alcohol. Government regulations say that an alcohol-free beer may contain as much as 0.05 percent alcohol. Comparatively, a regular can of beer has around 4 to 5 percent alcoholic content. Theorizing that he could get drunk if he drank enough non-alcoholic beer, a teenager in Alabama waited until his father went to bed one night, and drank the old man’s entire, ten-case stash of alcohol. At least, he tried to—the teen was treated at a hospital for a sodium imbalance after he drank 45 near beers…and he wasn’t nearly drunk.

C.

In an interview with a men’s magazine, the brewmaster for Sam Adams beer revealed the secret of how to drink beer all night long…and not get drunk. Oddly, the key to drinking beer (for the taste) without feeling its inebriating effects is to consume an ingredient that makes beer possible: yeast. Before he drinks any drink (and as a brewmaster, he has to drink beer all day, and still be alert), he consumes a teaspoon of regular, dry yeast, the kind you get at the grocery store. Evidently, yeast contains a compound that breaks down alcohol molecules into its various chemical elements. The liver does the same thing; eating yeast makes the breakdown happen in the stomach before it enters the bloodstream and brain.

Want more of the patently untrue? Check out Uncle John’s Fake Facts. (Really!)