Women who drink one or two pints each week are at lower risk of suffering a heart attack, researchers at the University of Gothenburg found.
Their risk is 30 per cent lower than heavy drinkers and women who never drink beer.
Dominique Hange, researcher at the university's Sahlgrenska Academy, said: 'Previous research also suggests that alcohol in moderate quantities can have a certain protective effect, but there is still uncertainty as to whether or not this really is the case.
'Our results have been checked against other risk factors for cardiovascular disease, which substantiates the findings.
'At the same time, we were unable to confirm that moderate wine consumption has the same effect, so our results also need to be confirmed through follow-up studies.'
The researchers followed 1,500 women over a period of almost 50 years to arrive at their conclusions.
They focused on a group of middle-aged women between 1968 to 2000.
They were asked about the frequency of their consumption of beer, wine or spirits, from 'daily' to 'nothing in the past 10 years'.
And they were also asked about a range of physical symptoms.
The results reveal that over the 32-year follow-up period, 185 women had a heart attack, 162 suffered a stroke, 160 developed diabetes and 345 were diagnosed with cancer.
Researchers found a statistically significant connection between high consumption of spirits - defined as more frequent than once or twice per month - and an almost 50 per cent higher risk of dying from cancer, compared with those who drink less frequently.
The study also reveals that women who reported that they drank beer once or twice per week to once or twice a month had a 30 per cent lower risk of a heart attack than women who drank beer several times each week, or daily, or those who never drank beer.
Moderate consumption of beer therefore appears to protect women from heart attacks, the researchers concluded.
Dailymail.co.uk
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