You always knew it. You just couldn’t prove it.

Well, now sciences backs you up: beer is better at post-workout rehydration than water.

According to a study in Granada — that bastion of scientific inquiry — rehydration was “slightly better” in beer drinkers than those who were given only water after a grueling treadmill run to exhaustion in 104-degree heat.

(Dang! Giving runners beer after that just seems like the scientifically ethical thing to do.)

Half the group was given water after the workouts, and the other half were given two pints of Spanish lager. The finding reportedly came after tests on 25 students over several months, with the following conclusions:

Researchers believe that it is the sugars, salts, and bubbles in a beer that may help people absorb fluids more quickly… [and] the carbon dioxide in beer helps quench thirst more quickly, and that beer’s carbohydrates replace calories lost during physical exertion.

Does that make beer a performance enhancing drug?