6 ms·

Drinking a six-pack at a time does sound kind of binge-y to me.

throwaway0a5e 6y ago
Start with dinner at 6 and go to bed at 9 and that's 2/hr. Not exactly keg stands and jungle juice territory. The human body processes 1-2 drinks/hr so at the end you'll have a buzz on the order of one stiff mixed drink (~3-4 shots of stuff in the 40% ballpark spread out over a tall glass of sugary fruity stuff). Edit: And since apparently this needs saying "drink" = "the standard alcohol/drink unit that all the professionals who measure this stuff use"
- recursive 6y ago
  I have no doubt that much higher levels of consumption are possible. I don't really have a position on what "binge" should mean, but that doesn't exactly sound like it's not. Could just be my perspective. I probably drink most days. Usually one beer. Rarely, I might have two in a day. I can't remember that last time I had more than that.
  - throwawayboise 6y ago
    I roughly define binge as any amount of drinking that leaves you with a hangover the next day. That usually indicates that you have consumed enough to lose your judgment on when to stop.
    - leesalminen 6y ago
      That’s a similar heuristic to what I use to define binge drinking. It doesn’t have to mean drinking a 30 rack in an evening.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  “1-2 drinks/hr” is not a well defined metric. It’s better to use units of alcohol: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-alcohol-units/ https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-alc... And more than 1 5% beer is outside of almost all people’s ability to “process” in an hour. I would wager the majority of people based on size/weight can’t process a single 5% beer in an hour.
  - QuercusMax 6y ago
    When people are drinking 6-packs, it's much more likely to be Coors Light (4.2%) than something like an Arrogant Bastard. According to 5 seconds of googling, the typical weight of an American man in 2016 was 197lbs. You might well lose your wager.
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      My estimate was based on half of the population being women, and the fact that fat doesn’t assist with processing alcohol as much as muscle, and most American men are not exactly muscular. https://mcwell.nd.edu/your-well-being/physical-well-being/alcohol/absorption-rate-factors/ https://mcwell.nd.edu/your-well-being/physical-well-being/al...
      - nitrogen 6y ago
        The most muscular dude I ever knew was so solely because he had so much weight to carry. Unless you are wheelchair-bound, fat necessitates at least some additional leg and core muscle.
  - ketzo 6y ago
    The original commenter might not have been using "drink" this way, but theoretically there is such a thing as a "standard drink": roughly 14 grams of pure alcohol, which is about 12oz of beer, 5oz of wine, or 1.5oz of liquor. This "standard drink" is what an average person can roughly process per hour. It's all fuzzy because of how many confounding variables there are with alcohol (and because "average person" is kind of a nonsense phrase), but there you go. Source: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/what-standard-drink https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/overview-a...
    - lotsofpulp 6y ago
      That website just defines a “standard drink” in the US as 14 grams of alcohol. It doesn’t say anything about how much an average person can “process” in an hour. I can’t even come up with a good reason for the utility of a measure of alcohol without it being a ratio of how much can be processed in an hour. That’s why the NHS metric is better suited for discussions about how much alcohol per unit of time one can/should drink, or to discuss the effects of different rates of alcohol consumption over time. From the NHS website: >One unit equals 10ml or 8g of pure alcohol, which is around the amount of alcohol the average adult can process in an hour.
- DanBC 6y ago
  In the UK "binge" is defined as > 8 units of alcohol in a single session for men > 6 units of alcohol in a single session for women Assuming the beer is 5% you'd need to drink 1.6 litres to hit 8 units of alcohol. If each can / bottle is 330 ml that's 1.9 litres.
  - jjgreen 6y ago
    Only by prudes, medics and lightweights, 4 pints doesn't even come close to a binge.
- whycombagator 6y ago
  What quantity would you say is binge drinking? Or rather, if a six pack before bed (6pm-9pm) isn’t binge drinking what quantity of beer is?
ogre_codes 6y ago
Depends if it's piss-water or a quality stout or IPA.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
  A six pack of piss-water is still 12 units of alcohol, definitely far above what one should regularly consume if you want to minimize health risks: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-alcohol-units/ https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-alc... My whole life I’ve been watching the “safe” amount of alcohol go down and down, study after study. The idea of casually drinking multiple beers after work every day is crazy to me.
  - ogre_codes 6y ago
    Oh if we're talking about health, it's a whole other question. I was just looking at the effects of alcohol consumption. Drinking a six pack of anything every night is likely the sign you are an alcoholic.
- ben_w 6y ago
  Despite not being a beer drinker, this feels like the right time to mention BrewDog and their ongoing battle to sell the strongest beer in the world. I first heard of this with Tactical Nuclear Penguin (32%); their latest HD Strength In Numbers, which is 57.8%. https://www.brewdog.com/eu_en/brewdog-vs-schorschbrau-strength-in-numbers-eu https://www.brewdog.com/eu_en/brewdog-vs-schorschbrau-streng...
  - S_A_P 6y ago
    I feel like they "cold brewing" process they use(at least that was what they were doing a few years ago when I read up on it) has more in common to distillation than finding high ABV tolerant yeast strains and actually brewing high gravity beer. I have taken apple cider and done a similar process to make Applejack. Its just a matter of freezing out the water/other non alcohol components. I mean, its interesting and all, but I dont really feel like its beer at that point.

Start with dinner at 6 and go to bed at 9 and that's 2/hr. Not exactly keg stands and jungle juice territory. The human body processes 1-2 drinks/hr so at the end you'll have a buzz on the order of one stiff mixed drink (~3-4 shots of stuff in the 40% ballpark spread out over a tall glass of sugary fruity stuff). Edit: And since apparently this needs saying "drink" = "the standard alcohol/drink unit that all the professionals who measure this stuff use"

recursive 6y ago
I have no doubt that much higher levels of consumption are possible. I don't really have a position on what "binge" should mean, but that doesn't exactly sound like it's not. Could just be my perspective. I probably drink most days. Usually one beer. Rarely, I might have two in a day. I can't remember that last time I had more than that.
- throwawayboise 6y ago
  I roughly define binge as any amount of drinking that leaves you with a hangover the next day. That usually indicates that you have consumed enough to lose your judgment on when to stop.
  - leesalminen 6y ago
    That’s a similar heuristic to what I use to define binge drinking. It doesn’t have to mean drinking a 30 rack in an evening.
lotsofpulp 6y ago
“1-2 drinks/hr” is not a well defined metric. It’s better to use units of alcohol: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-alcohol-units/ https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-alc... And more than 1 5% beer is outside of almost all people’s ability to “process” in an hour. I would wager the majority of people based on size/weight can’t process a single 5% beer in an hour.
- QuercusMax 6y ago
  When people are drinking 6-packs, it's much more likely to be Coors Light (4.2%) than something like an Arrogant Bastard. According to 5 seconds of googling, the typical weight of an American man in 2016 was 197lbs. You might well lose your wager.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    My estimate was based on half of the population being women, and the fact that fat doesn’t assist with processing alcohol as much as muscle, and most American men are not exactly muscular. https://mcwell.nd.edu/your-well-being/physical-well-being/alcohol/absorption-rate-factors/ https://mcwell.nd.edu/your-well-being/physical-well-being/al...
    - nitrogen 6y ago
      The most muscular dude I ever knew was so solely because he had so much weight to carry. Unless you are wheelchair-bound, fat necessitates at least some additional leg and core muscle.
- ketzo 6y ago
  The original commenter might not have been using "drink" this way, but theoretically there is such a thing as a "standard drink": roughly 14 grams of pure alcohol, which is about 12oz of beer, 5oz of wine, or 1.5oz of liquor. This "standard drink" is what an average person can roughly process per hour. It's all fuzzy because of how many confounding variables there are with alcohol (and because "average person" is kind of a nonsense phrase), but there you go. Source: https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/overview-alcohol-consumption/what-standard-drink https://www.niaaa.nih.gov/alcohols-effects-health/overview-a...
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
    That website just defines a “standard drink” in the US as 14 grams of alcohol. It doesn’t say anything about how much an average person can “process” in an hour. I can’t even come up with a good reason for the utility of a measure of alcohol without it being a ratio of how much can be processed in an hour. That’s why the NHS metric is better suited for discussions about how much alcohol per unit of time one can/should drink, or to discuss the effects of different rates of alcohol consumption over time. From the NHS website: >One unit equals 10ml or 8g of pure alcohol, which is around the amount of alcohol the average adult can process in an hour.
DanBC 6y ago
In the UK "binge" is defined as > 8 units of alcohol in a single session for men > 6 units of alcohol in a single session for women Assuming the beer is 5% you'd need to drink 1.6 litres to hit 8 units of alcohol. If each can / bottle is 330 ml that's 1.9 litres.
- jjgreen 6y ago
  Only by prudes, medics and lightweights, 4 pints doesn't even come close to a binge.
whycombagator 6y ago
What quantity would you say is binge drinking? Or rather, if a six pack before bed (6pm-9pm) isn’t binge drinking what quantity of beer is?

ogre_codes 6y ago

Depends if it's piss-water or a quality stout or IPA.

lotsofpulp 6y ago
A six pack of piss-water is still 12 units of alcohol, definitely far above what one should regularly consume if you want to minimize health risks: https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-alcohol-units/ https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/alcohol-support/calculating-alc... My whole life I’ve been watching the “safe” amount of alcohol go down and down, study after study. The idea of casually drinking multiple beers after work every day is crazy to me.
- ogre_codes 6y ago
  Oh if we're talking about health, it's a whole other question. I was just looking at the effects of alcohol consumption. Drinking a six pack of anything every night is likely the sign you are an alcoholic.
ben_w 6y ago
Despite not being a beer drinker, this feels like the right time to mention BrewDog and their ongoing battle to sell the strongest beer in the world. I first heard of this with Tactical Nuclear Penguin (32%); their latest HD Strength In Numbers, which is 57.8%. https://www.brewdog.com/eu_en/brewdog-vs-schorschbrau-strength-in-numbers-eu https://www.brewdog.com/eu_en/brewdog-vs-schorschbrau-streng...
- S_A_P 6y ago
  I feel like they "cold brewing" process they use(at least that was what they were doing a few years ago when I read up on it) has more in common to distillation than finding high ABV tolerant yeast strains and actually brewing high gravity beer. I have taken apple cider and done a similar process to make Applejack. Its just a matter of freezing out the water/other non alcohol components. I mean, its interesting and all, but I dont really feel like its beer at that point.