How many beers do you drink per day?

[Shane Phelan]

Since I started brewing a couple of years ago I have noticed that my alcohol consumption has increased a good bit. I tend to drink one or two of my own beers in the evening and maybe 3 or 4 on the weekend.

From reading around it seems the low risk daily intake for men is two standard drinks but I don't think any of my beers would count as a standard drink.... :

I just curious to see how much other people are drinking on average?

[Ciderhead]

The more you drink the more tolerant to the effects you become.
Like everything nice in life its gonna kill you the reports yesterday in the news about booze, in that after fats, alcohol is the next biggest contributor to weight.
Beersmith is a fecker as it tells me my blonde ales have 450 Calories a litre
If you are worried about consumption why don't you make lower % beers for "schoolnights" and save the stronger stuff for the week-end.
 

[Partridge9]

Probably should have a 0-1 category

but if you broke it up further

it should be two polls

beers mon - thursday
beers friday - sunday


I reckon most people would drink 4+ at the weekend

[Shane Phelan]

Yeah I was considering a 0-1 category but if you drank 4 or 5 at the weekend then that would pretty much put you in the 1-2 category on average. Its really just a rough poll.

[Will_D]

So far it looks like only I am telling the truth!!!!

BTW: Medical fact:

It is better to consume your units evenly every day and not save up for weekends ( could be called binge drinking )

Will

[Shane Phelan]

When I tell people in work or my parents that I drink 1 or 2 a day, they have a general "You better be careful, as you look like you are becoming an alcoholic" expression on their faces.

On seeing the American brewers' version, I feel reassured. 

[DEMPSEY]

I am having my FIRST beer since about 20th december. Got a chest infection and now have larry and gituss.Today is the first day that I have felt like even having a pint

[Lush_Bag]

I can't answer the question "how many beers do I drink per day" as I usually only drink one day per week, on Tuesday evenings when I'm not driving for a living the following day. However I have to admit I tend to go for it and drink 3 or occasionally 4 litre bottles of homebrew (burp) sorry...

[Mike]

None during the week generally but on the weekend I'd have about 9 on a Friday, 3 on a Saturday if I've got training on a Sunday.

[UpsidedownA (Andrew)]

Before coming away on my course, I was drinking at least a litre a day and sometimes 2 but not regularly having more than that. I'd only go above 2 litres once a fortnight or so. Since coming on the course, I haven't had access to my home-brew, so I'm drinking more irregularly but heavily when I do drink.

I try to have (and succeed in having) a week off drinking every month. I find that easier than having a couple of days off during the week. I call it my beer-fast.

I don't think 1 litre of beer a day is the least bit excessive. 2 litres a day probably is a bit excessive. The legal unit of alcohol is 10ml of ethanol in the UK and 10g of ethanol in Ireland, that's 12.7ml. The UK recommendation is up to 21 units for men and 14 for women (I think). My drinking would be over that. But I think the guidelines are very cautious. They are based on studies that compare health outcomes with levels of reported drinking. Since people tend to underreport how much they drink (I felt a strong temptation to do that here), the actual safe level is likely to be higher than the reported safe level. It's hard to know how it would differ, but I've seen a study that compared reported alcohol consumption for the UK with figures from HMRC. The Brits were reporting around 11 drinks per week (I think that's drinks not units) when excise receipts suggested the true level was more like 18drinks.


You got to remember there's a J-shaped association between overall mortality and increased alcohol consumption. In other words, mortality rates initially drop with increased alcohol consumption before rising and passing the teetotaller level. Moderate alcohol consumption is better for you than total abstinence. Also the relationship is more like a u-shaped relationship when you just look at heart disease, meaning you actually have to drink quite heavily before your doing worse than someone who doesn't drink at all. Although there needs to be a caveat on this: the j-shaped and u-shaped relationships are really only evident for older drinkers (mid-30s and above). Also smoking cancels out the cardio-protective effects of alcohol.

I'll say one thing, though: Taking up homebrewing definitely led to me gaining weight.

[Will_D]

Having just returned from a visit to Manchester and guess what??!!!

The UK Extra Cold Guiness glasses now have the "this contains 2.4 units of your daily allowance" logo

FFS

I rest my case!!

[Ciderhead]

Having just returned from a visit to Manchester and guess what??!!!

The UK Extra Cold Guiness glasses now have the "this contains 2.4 units of your daily allowance" logo

FFS

I rest my case!!

Of iron?

[johnrm]

The bulging middle is a simple matter of calories in vs calories out.
Nothing like a bit of exercise between pints.
Pub Crawl!

[UpsidedownA (Andrew)]

The bulging middle is a simple matter of calories in vs calories out.
Nothing like a bit of exercise between pints.
Pub Crawl!

I think it's worse than that. It's a matter of calories in. Most of the calories you burn are consumed by your basic metabolism, so exercising doesn't affect how many calories you burn on a day by very much.

There was a study done comparing hunter gatherers in Africa with sedentary western office-workers which found they basically burn the same number of calories each day despite the fact that the hunter-gatherers obviously get more exercise. (I think this is the study people are talking about http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0040503

So the sorry conclusion has to be that if you consume more calories, you won't burn them off, you'll just get fat. Still, I think I'd rather be fat than thirsty.

[brenmurph]

The more you drink the more tolerant to the effects you become.
Like everything nice in life its gonna kill you the reports yesterday in the news about booze, in that after fats, alcohol is the next biggest contributor to weight.
Beersmith is a fecker as it tells me my blonde ales have 450 Calories a litre
If you are worried about consumption why don't you make lower % beers for "schoolnights" and save the stronger stuff for the week-end.
 

Inactivity is the biggest contributor to weight and ill health! Its worth considering when you are inactive your health fails and when health fails you are less likely to exercise and then the weight balloons. Inactivity is the number one health risk.
Your brain and nervous system may get used to beer and you may show no initial response to beers alcohol content but the fats and cholesterol still get produced and stored  in and around the liver causing liver cell damage (relative to how drunk you get) and progressively increased blood pressure. Theres no evidence that a couple of pints a day causes harm and in fact theres good evidence that two pints a day of 3-4% alc actually has health benefits (minister for health forgets to tell people abouyt that one). There is also a great difference in health risk depending on whether food is consumed with alcohol. Food slows the concentrations of alcohol entering the bloodstream and therefore the liver so has a remarkable effect on the risk or lack of risk. An example  may be stomach ulcers and stomach cancer. Alcohol kills bacteria so on empty stomach alcohol kills our friendly bacteria and damaged the mucous membrane of the stomach ruining the proctive barrier, causing inflamation and allowing pathogenic bacteria attack the stomach wall..
A simple rule to protect from the (potential) harmful effects of alcohol is never drink without food also, drink more water when drinking alcohol and drink steadily, slower and use lower alcohol beers and enjoy the flavours and textures of real beer. Option 2 is dont drink sensibly but there will be consequences........terrible decisions we are faced with!!