Leave it to the Austrians to come up with the world’s one and only beer spa. Schloss Starkenberger is a brewery-turned-resort tucked away in a 700-year-old castle. Located in the hills of western Austria on the outskirts of the village of Tarrenz, the castle, which sits perched atop Stark Mountain, is hardly the impressive part. Inside are beer pools that would make Homer Simpson swoon.

Starkenberger beer has been brewed on-site since 1810. The brewing process once required the use of large fermenting vats in the castle’s underground cellar. Almost two centuries years later, the castle’s expansive vats were no longer necessary, and in 2005, the owners decided to think outside the bottle, making one of the world’s first beer-filled swimming pools. Since then, other breweries have followed suit, with beer-bathing resorts popping up all over Austria, Germany, and the Czech Republic.

Starkenberger enlisted the help of artist Wernfried Poschusta to convert the fermentation tanks into spa-like pools. At 13 feet wide, each of the seven pools contains a total volume of around 42,000 pints. In other words, a heck of a lot of tallboys.

But you don’t actually have to be a lover of the brewski to benefit from a dip. According to local lore, bathing in beer is good for you, since this natural beverage is rich in minerals such as calcium. Not to mention, it’s also good for your skin, and can apparently help with conditions like psoriasis.

Other proponents, such as this Prague-based spa, claim that beer baths cank actually help you ‘detox’ — they just don’t say what from. Could bathing in beer help you to detox after drinking too much beer? That’s exactly the kind of logic that heavy beer drinkers are known for.

While taking a dip in a beer swimming pool certainly can’t hurt you, drinking yeasty bathwater might not be the brightest idea around. At Starkenberger, they actually warn against sipping from the pools ( ... and let us remind you that the beer is warm). They will, however, serve you up a cold one while you get wetted — in the bath, of course.

_{[Image via Shutterstock]}