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4.5L of 0.5% ABV beer would not make you drunk. For comparison, this is equivalent to less than a pint of a typical mainstream beer. Indeed a 0.5% ABV drink can

4.5L of 0.5% ABV beer would not make you drunk. For comparison, this is equivalent to less than a pint of a typical mainstream beer. Indeed a 0.5% ABV drink can be branded alcohol free (at least in the UK). Would 4.5L of 2% ABV make you drunk? Depends how quickly you can drink it. It's 9 units of alcohol. We commonly assume the body can process 1 unit/hour so if this quantity was consumed over an entire day, I don't think you'd get merry. I'm not saying it's a good idea to drink like this, just highlighting the impact of ABV on the outcome.

junofan 3y ago
It’s 8 pints of 13% ABV if you look at the table in the article. Manageable over the course of a day, but you’re definitely drinking.
- luc4sdreyer 3y ago
  Which table? The referenced table (9) only says "strong" (relative to what?) and gives a calorie count, which for beer is not very useful as an ABV estimate.
- SCdF 3y ago
  For sailors, in one estimate, and sailors are a special case as the article mentions, because strong beer is the only thing that doesn't go off at sea. Everyone else is the much lower estimate discussed up thread. > Manageable over the course of a day, but you’re definitely drinking. Maybe I'm a lightweight, I would be absolutely trollied if I had to drink eight 13% pints over the course of a day. I have never been anywhere where they'd even sell you an entire pint of 13%, you are in 2/3rd or maybe even 1/3rd territory.
  - brewdad 3y ago
    I have a favorite speciality beer that comes in around 13%. They used to sell it only in 22oz bottles and that was it for the night. If I decided to open one, I knew that was my one drink for the evening. They recently started selling it in 12oz bottles, so it’s no longer a commitment but rather a choice.
    - saiya-jin 3y ago
      Its basically a bottle of wine (lighter one but still). Careful there, the road to alcoholism is smooth and often you realize you're there only way after actually reaching the point.
bloak 3y ago
> Indeed a 0.5% ABV drink can be branded alcohol free (at least in the UK). Er, no! Perhaps in Ireland? In the UK the term "alcohol-free" can only be used if the drink has no more than 0.05% alcohol. However apparently it's allowed to use the term "alkoholfrei": take a look at the bottles of "Erdinger alkoholfrei" in UK supermarkets with tiny smallprint explaining that it's not alcohol-free (it's 0.5% and tastes quite good). The rules may have changed fairly recently. They always used to sell "shandy" with 0.5% alcohol as a soft drink to children but I'm not sure if they still do that. There's another rule that says you can't sell a drink that has the same brand name as an alcoholic drink to children, so children can't buy alcohol-free Heineken (which has 0.05% alcohol), for example. (I think I read somewhere that they had to create a special exception for soy sauce in Australia because soy sauce can have up to 2% alcohol but obviously nobody's going to quaff it and if they did the 2% alcohol would probably not be their biggest problem.)
- SCdF 3y ago
  I have recently been trying alcohol free / low alcohol beers as the market is picking up for them, and people definitely advertise 0.5% as alcohol free. From a quick tesco search Punk AF (https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/304722896 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/304722896) and Lucky Saint (https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/311448058 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/311448058) both contain the terms "alcohol free" prominently on the front but are 0.5%. There are also a bunch of 0.0% beers, and their fine print is how you say, no more than 0.05%, but at least Brewdog and Lucky Saint are getting away with using the term for 0.5%, and I am sure I've seen more of that kind of thing.
  - safety1st 3y ago
    You will find this level of alcohol (0.1% - 0.5%) in all kinds of foods and beverages. A study found orange juice that was 0.73% alcohol and hamburger buns that were 1.28%. [1] The sources and numbers are getting mixed up here but on the topic of the Founders, the small beer George Washington was brewing was probably in the vicinity of 1%. I think it's pretty safe to say that a guy sipping 1% all day might get a bit of a buzz and not much more, especially considering the tolerance he'd build up. As with anything the dose makes the poison. I've consumed a lot of alcohol over my life, but as I get older my friends and I have mostly lost our interest in experiencing anything beyond a mild buzz. At a bar we frequently order a lemonade/Sprite along with our beers and make DIY shandies [2] which brings the alcohol content down to like 2.5%. It's pretty hard to get drunk at that level even if you go at it for hours. Throw in a water here and there and it's even lower. I only wish society and the industry was more supportive of this manner of drinking, but the bars undoubtedly make less money off of us than the guy who goes full bore and ends up behind the wheel plastered... [1] https://goodstuffdrinks.com/blogs/the-good-stuff/how-much-alcohol-in-alcohol-free-drinks https://goodstuffdrinks.com/blogs/the-good-stuff/how-much-al... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shandy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shandy
rightbyte 3y ago
There is no way 2% makes you drunk in practice. When I was 14 drinking 3.5% worked like one or two times before I got used to it. And I drank it really fast.
- The_Colonel 3y ago
  What you didn't get used to was drinking enough of it. 3.5% will get you drunk in big enough quantity.
  - rightbyte 3y ago
    Really? Have you tried it? I don't think it is possible for an adult. When I was in China vising a friend we tried to get abit drunk on local beer that was like 3.6% at most and it was like drinking soda. The locals seemed to drink spirits together with low alcoholic beer for some reason so there was no strong beer in stores, except some place that had Heiniken. I have this pet theory that alcohol is not linear. Like, 5% beer get you way more drunk than the same amount of alcohol in 4.4% beer.
    - kijin 3y ago
      It's the percentage of alcohol in your system (Blood Alcohol Content) that makes you drunk, not the raw amount. If you're drinking 30-50 units of water for every unit of alcohol, all that alcohol is going to be very diluted and have little effect on your BAC. There's probably a threshold beyond which you'll just piss it all out before the your BAC ever reaches a meaningful number.
      - The_Colonel 3y ago
        That honestly doesn't sound right. Drinking more water won't dilute your blood / BAC. You're mostly limited how fast you can drink that much liquid.
        kijin 3y ago

junofan 3y ago

It’s 8 pints of 13% ABV if you look at the table in the article. Manageable over the course of a day, but you’re definitely drinking.

luc4sdreyer 3y ago
Which table? The referenced table (9) only says "strong" (relative to what?) and gives a calorie count, which for beer is not very useful as an ABV estimate.
SCdF 3y ago
For sailors, in one estimate, and sailors are a special case as the article mentions, because strong beer is the only thing that doesn't go off at sea. Everyone else is the much lower estimate discussed up thread. > Manageable over the course of a day, but you’re definitely drinking. Maybe I'm a lightweight, I would be absolutely trollied if I had to drink eight 13% pints over the course of a day. I have never been anywhere where they'd even sell you an entire pint of 13%, you are in 2/3rd or maybe even 1/3rd territory.
- brewdad 3y ago
  I have a favorite speciality beer that comes in around 13%. They used to sell it only in 22oz bottles and that was it for the night. If I decided to open one, I knew that was my one drink for the evening. They recently started selling it in 12oz bottles, so it’s no longer a commitment but rather a choice.
  - saiya-jin 3y ago
    Its basically a bottle of wine (lighter one but still). Careful there, the road to alcoholism is smooth and often you realize you're there only way after actually reaching the point.

bloak 3y ago

> Indeed a 0.5% ABV drink can be branded alcohol free (at least in the UK). Er, no! Perhaps in Ireland? In the UK the term "alcohol-free" can only be used if the drink has no more than 0.05% alcohol. However apparently it's allowed to use the term "alkoholfrei": take a look at the bottles of "Erdinger alkoholfrei" in UK supermarkets with tiny smallprint explaining that it's not alcohol-free (it's 0.5% and tastes quite good). The rules may have changed fairly recently. They always used to sell "shandy" with 0.5% alcohol as a soft drink to children but I'm not sure if they still do that. There's another rule that says you can't sell a drink that has the same brand name as an alcoholic drink to children, so children can't buy alcohol-free Heineken (which has 0.05% alcohol), for example. (I think I read somewhere that they had to create a special exception for soy sauce in Australia because soy sauce can have up to 2% alcohol but obviously nobody's going to quaff it and if they did the 2% alcohol would probably not be their biggest problem.)

SCdF 3y ago
I have recently been trying alcohol free / low alcohol beers as the market is picking up for them, and people definitely advertise 0.5% as alcohol free. From a quick tesco search Punk AF (https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/304722896 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/304722896) and Lucky Saint (https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/311448058 https://www.tesco.com/groceries/en-GB/products/311448058) both contain the terms "alcohol free" prominently on the front but are 0.5%. There are also a bunch of 0.0% beers, and their fine print is how you say, no more than 0.05%, but at least Brewdog and Lucky Saint are getting away with using the term for 0.5%, and I am sure I've seen more of that kind of thing.
- safety1st 3y ago
  You will find this level of alcohol (0.1% - 0.5%) in all kinds of foods and beverages. A study found orange juice that was 0.73% alcohol and hamburger buns that were 1.28%. [1] The sources and numbers are getting mixed up here but on the topic of the Founders, the small beer George Washington was brewing was probably in the vicinity of 1%. I think it's pretty safe to say that a guy sipping 1% all day might get a bit of a buzz and not much more, especially considering the tolerance he'd build up. As with anything the dose makes the poison. I've consumed a lot of alcohol over my life, but as I get older my friends and I have mostly lost our interest in experiencing anything beyond a mild buzz. At a bar we frequently order a lemonade/Sprite along with our beers and make DIY shandies [2] which brings the alcohol content down to like 2.5%. It's pretty hard to get drunk at that level even if you go at it for hours. Throw in a water here and there and it's even lower. I only wish society and the industry was more supportive of this manner of drinking, but the bars undoubtedly make less money off of us than the guy who goes full bore and ends up behind the wheel plastered... [1] https://goodstuffdrinks.com/blogs/the-good-stuff/how-much-alcohol-in-alcohol-free-drinks https://goodstuffdrinks.com/blogs/the-good-stuff/how-much-al... [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shandy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shandy

rightbyte 3y ago

There is no way 2% makes you drunk in practice. When I was 14 drinking 3.5% worked like one or two times before I got used to it. And I drank it really fast.

The_Colonel 3y ago
What you didn't get used to was drinking enough of it. 3.5% will get you drunk in big enough quantity.
- rightbyte 3y ago
  Really? Have you tried it? I don't think it is possible for an adult. When I was in China vising a friend we tried to get abit drunk on local beer that was like 3.6% at most and it was like drinking soda. The locals seemed to drink spirits together with low alcoholic beer for some reason so there was no strong beer in stores, except some place that had Heiniken. I have this pet theory that alcohol is not linear. Like, 5% beer get you way more drunk than the same amount of alcohol in 4.4% beer.
  - kijin 3y ago
    It's the percentage of alcohol in your system (Blood Alcohol Content) that makes you drunk, not the raw amount. If you're drinking 30-50 units of water for every unit of alcohol, all that alcohol is going to be very diluted and have little effect on your BAC. There's probably a threshold beyond which you'll just piss it all out before the your BAC ever reaches a meaningful number.
    - The_Colonel 3y ago
      That honestly doesn't sound right. Drinking more water won't dilute your blood / BAC. You're mostly limited how fast you can drink that much liquid.
      - kijin 3y ago