According to the study which was linked in another comment [1] they were using the standard defined in [2]. This site shows that one pint of lager counts as 2 units of alcohol. One pint is 19.2 oz [3]. A bottle of beer is usually 12 oz, aka 5/8 of a pint, aka 1.25 units of alcohol. I trust the source over the science journalist.
[3] Google failed me here. British pints are 19.2 oz, not 12 oz, as pointed out in the comments below.
On a slightly unrelated note.. A woman would be defined as a moderate drinker if she drinks more than one unit a day, but most beer companies don't sell ~10 oz cans of beer. When I feel like drinking at a restaurant, I make a joke and ask for a "child size" beer. When I drink at home, I usually have to pour out part of the full bottle of beer because it is just too much. It seems like a waste!
Keep in mind their pint (568ml, per paper) is an imperial pint (19.2 fl oz) and not an American pint (16 fl oz).
So, in US terms, UK guidance is ~5 pints and US/men is ~8.5 pints. Not a huge difference in terms of point made, but mostly so the message doesn't get garbled over the pond.
Also, their "high strength beer" in the paper (5.2%) is pretty much normal for American lager, so don't get thrown off by the high strength bit.
Draught beer is served in 25cL in France. But the alcool unit is not defined as in the UK. 1 unit is 10g of ethanol, not 10mL, so I don't know about a European standard. Alcool has a density of 0.789, so about 12.7mL. So just over 5% alcool for 25cL. It's possible to find lager beer at 5%, but the trend is for stronger beer.
But a bottled 33cL 7.5% craft beer would be about 2 french units.
Wow. 3.5% beer...is almost unheard of in the USA, especially in the face of the overwhelming popularity of “craft” and “micro” brews which often click in above the 6% mark
This is very very wrong. You should be hesitant to extrapolate so wildly from your bubble.
The timing and circumstances of when I started drinking means I've only ever drunk craft beer, but I'm also aware that where i live is not representative f the country. Craft beer has a 12% share of the US's beer market. "Overwhelming popularity" is just flat wrong.
Yea, but the baseline for that _type_ of beer is pretty low so the shittier ones in that part of the market can easily reach 3.5. Many of the fraternities at my (large, public) university would bulk-buy 2.5% beer.
This is in contrast to the baseline that the parents claim would imply, in a market supposedly "overwhelmingly" skewed towards stronger craft beer.
And what exactly were these 2.5% beers that your university's fraternities were buying? Can you provide a concrete example of these popular 2.5% beers available in bulk?
My mistake, I was just curious enough to double-check and it was 3.2% (low-point beer).
When you're supplying drinks for hundreds of random people, the volume starts to be a lot more important than the quality of the beer (or alcohol) itself. Everyone who lived in the frat had their own private stashes of better beer that they and their friends would drink from, and our private parties were better-supplied.
The standard Blue Moon is 5.4%. There's a 3.2% variant, but it's only sold in a handful of U.S. states (like Utah and Oklahoma) that have a 3.2% cutoff for beers sold at convenience and grocery stores.
3.2% by weight or volume? Most of the 3.2% beers are measured by weight because it is related to some state law that specifies alcohol by weight. This translates to about 4% by volume.
Right, but beer varies widely in alcohol content. One "standard beer" might be defined as 12 oz / ~330ml @ 4.5% alcohol by volume, but many IPAs are 6-7% or greater, and in most U.S. states you can find lots of beer in excess of 10% ABV.
'''In general getting much above 10-15%abv requires specialty yeasts or concentration techniques, and getting much above 20% is going to require some sort of concentration.'''
One of my favorites is Founders Kentucky Breakfast Stout, which is a barrel-aged beer and is around 13%. Actually where I live, barrel-aged beers are becoming very common, most craft breweries have them. And they're all above 10%.
Not debating the "specialty concentration techniques" since it's basically infusing the beer with whiskey, but it's certainly very easy to get a beer with an ABV above 10%. Very easy. Your local liquor store likely has several varieties in stock right now.
“Lots of beer in excess of 10%” is a bit of a stretch. I think it’s more common to see the 6-7% range represented with something pushing 10% being the outlier.
A bit of a weird and somewhat related trivia to the question of what is a drink there is a reverse situation in Canada sometimes.
In Canada (and UK?) legally a pint is 20 fluid ounces but in the USA it's 16 fluid ounces. Some bars in Canada serve 16 oz drinks calling it a pint. My guess is they buy "pint size" glassware from the US but it's 16 oz..
I couldn't get beyond the paywall, but did they mention which sort of beer? Standard Bud/Miller products? Using a 12 oz beer as a starting point doesn't mean much in a craft beer world with most "good" beers ranging from 5-8% ABV.
Edit: not really understanding the downvotes? Alcohol content is extremely important in understanding the meaning of a "drink". Not trying to be pedantic, but now more than ever, "a beer" is not really a useful descriptor.
I bring this up because I personally enjoy a beer at the end of a long day. I tend to drink IPAs, and those IPAs tend to range from 6-8% ABV. Trying to put this article in the context of my personal habits.
It's 8 grams or 10 mL of pure alcohol. So you would need to calculate that based on percentage and volume for the specific drink. But you can reason using the "standard beer/wine/whiskey units" as a rule of thumb and round up by 1 or 2 total drinks over the course of say a few IPAs vs Budweisers. Same if you drink 100 proof vs 80. Or 15% zinfandel vs 12% merlot.
A good rule of thumb that my college alcohol edu used was a 12 oz beer, 4 oz glass of wine, and 1.5 oz shot all equaled one drink, at 4,12,and 36% respectively. You'll obviously need to adjust for those numbers but it has always helped anchor me (even though I haven't had a 4% beer since college).
