Alcohol Information >> Beginner's Guides >> Beginner's Guide to Alcohol
Beginner's Guide to Alcohol
BASIC INFORMATION1) You must be 18 to purchase alcohol in the United Kingdom.
If you are not 18, then your participation on a Dipsomania Society Pubcrawl would be illegal. The Dipsomania Society certainly cannot condone such things.
2) Alcohol gets you drunk.
Being drunk is a very difficult thing to describe. Essentially it is a numbing of the senses- your body feels warm and the world seems like a saner place. We certainly recommend the experience, but must point out that it is something that is best tried first in the company of friends who you know will happily forego the enjoyment of their evenings in order to take you to hospital, should you require it.
3) Being drunk can lead to a "hangover".
Hangovers are much easier to descibe than being drunk. They are horrible, horrible headaches, combined with a nausea that can easily make you vomit if it's trying really hard. There are three ways of preventing hangovers that Dom can recommend:-
- THE WATER METHOD
- THE AVOIDANCE METHOD
- THE WITHDRAWAL METHOD
The main cause of hangovers is the dehydration that alcohol affects on the body. Therefore, drinking plenty of water when you get home (or preferably, during your drinking session) will help to rehydrate you, and avoid that horrible headache.
Quite simply, sleep for ten hours or so after your drinking session and you should sleep all the way through your hangover. You will then awake, feeling only slightly dazed and probably craving fatty foods. (Go and eat something, it will taste gorgeous)
Don't drink any alcoholic beverages during the evening and you should wake up the next day without any signs of a hangover.
You can check the amount of alcohol in your chosen beverage by looking at the container. It will display the alcohol content in one of three ways:
- ABV
- PROOF
- UNITS
This stands for "Alcohol By Volume" and refers to the amount of alcohol as a percentage of the liquid as a whole. The majority of lagers are now sold at "premium" levels, which are around the 5% mark - most wines are 12% and spirits are 40%
The "proof" is the alcohol content of distilled liquors. It is the percentage of alcohol multiplied by two. We've no idea why, but we believe it's an American thing.
Units are measures of pure alcohol, and are used to keep track of how much alcohol you intake during a chosen period. One unit equals 10ml of pure alcohol. Here are some rough unit guides:
1 Unit = 1/2 (284ml) lager (at 3.5% ABV, or 7 PROOF)
1 Unit = 1 (25ml) shot of spirits (at 40% ABV, or 80 PROOF)
1 Unit = 1 (125ml) glass of wine (at 8% ABV, or 16 PROOF)
Although these laws do seem set to change in the not too distant future, at the moment the standard licensing laws allow for the sale of alcoholic beverages to take place at the following times:-
PUBLIC HOUSES
(thanks to www.wikipedia.com)
n the 1930s the Anglo-French writer Hilaire Belloc penned the following cautionary warning:
When you have lost your inns drown your empty selves, for you will have lost the last of England!
Public houses are culturally and socially different from other places found elsewhere in the world such as cafés, bars, bierkellers and brewpubs. There are approximately 60,000 public houses in the United Kingdom (UK). In many places, especially in villages, a pub can be the focal point of the community, playing a similar role to the local church in this respect.
Pubs are social places for the sale and consumption of mainly alcoholic beverages, and most public houses offer a wide range of beers, wines, spirits and alcopops. Beer served in a pub can range from pressurised "keg" beer, to "cask-conditioned" real ale beer brewed in the time-honoured fashion. The beer lends most pubs a pleasant, memorable aroma. Often the windows of the pub are of smoked or frosted glass so that the clientele are obscured from the street.
The Green Dragon, Cheshunt
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The Green Dragon, Cheshunt
The owner or manager (licensee) of a public house is known as the publican, and may be referred to as "guv" (short for guv'nor, or governor) in some parts of the country. Each pub generally has a crowd of regulars, people who drink there regularly. The pub people visit most often is called their local. In many cases, this will be the pub nearest to their home, but some people choose their local for other reasons: proximity to work, a traditional venue for their friends, the availability of real ale, or maybe just a pool table.
Colloquialisms for the public house include boozer, the local, watering hole and rub-a-dub-dub (see Cockney Rhyming Slang).
From the middle of the 19th century restrictions began to be placed on the opening hours of licensed premises. These culminated in the Defence of the Realm Act of August 1914, which along with the introduction of rationing, and the censorship of the press also restricted the opening hours of public houses to 12noon–2.30pm and 6.30pm–9.30pm. In recent times the licensing laws have become more relaxed, with pubs allowed to open from 11am (12noon on Sundays) through to 11pm (10.30pm on Sundays).
The Licensing Act 2003, which came into force on November 24, 2005, allows for pubs to apply to the local authority for opening hours of their choice. This has proved controversial, with supporters arguing that it will end the concentration of violence around half past 11, when people must leave the pub, making policing easier. Critics have claimed that these laws will lead to '24-hour Drinking'. By the day before the law came into force, 60 326 establishments had applied for longer hours, and 1 121 had applied for a licence to sell alcohol 24 hours a day [1]. However, many argue that few of these establishments will be constantly open. There is some evidence for this in that since 2000, pubs have been able to open for 36 hours straight, from 11am on New Year's Eve, but few if any do. Even before the new Act comes into force, several English cities have already allowed some pubs to extend opening hours to midnight or 1am.
"OFF LICENCES"
(thanks to www.wikipedia.com)
An off-licence (or offie) is the British term for a licensed shop selling alcoholic beverages for consumption off the premises, as opposed to a bar or public house which is licensed for consumption at the point of sale. It is analogous to the way that take-away food contrasts with a restaurant.
Off-licences may be specialist shops, convenience stores, parts of supermarkets, or attached to bars and pubs. Typically, prices are substantially lower than in bars or pubs.
The name derives from one particular division of British licensing laws. Some public houses will also possess an off licence as part of their regular licence, allowing them to sell sealed alcoholic drinks (e.g. unopened bottles of wine) for consumption elsewhere.
When restaurants refer to themselves as fully licensed this is usually misleading: they generally only have an on-licence.