Woman beats rap with claim her body brews own alcohol

Drunken-driving charges against an upstate New York woman have been dismissed based on an unusual defense: Her body is a brewery.

The woman was arrested while driving with a blood-alcohol level more than four times the legal limit. She then discovered she has a rare condition called "auto-brewery syndrome", in which her digestive system converts ordinary food into alcohol, her lawyer Joseph Marusak said.

A town judge in the Buffalo suburb of Hamburg dismissed the drunken-driving charges after Marusak presented a doctor's research showing the woman had the previously undiagnosed condition in which high levels of yeast in her intestines fermented high-carbohydrate foods into alcohol.