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Comment by novia | Hacker News Reader

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.

[1] http://www.bmj.com/content/357/bmj.j2353

[2] https://www.alcoholconcern.org.uk/unit-calculator

[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!

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They give a more helpful description within the paper as well.

> 1 unit contains 10 mL or 8 g of alcohol

> 14 units (UK guidance per week for men and women) is equivalent to 4 pints of high strength beer or 5 large glasses of 14% wine (see below)

> 24.5 units (US guidance for men) is equivalent to 7 pints of beer or 9 glasses of wine

So 4 pints of high strength beer is 14 "units". 5.2% is the value used, which I wouldn't consider a very high strength beer at all ;)

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.

One British pint is 568mL, and one "unit" of alcohol is 10mL -- I think the latter might be a European standard.

That makes a ½pt (284mL) beer, at 3.5%, almost exactly 10mL of alcohol (284*0.035 = 9.94).

The average beer is stronger than it was 20 years ago, but there's still a feeling that 1pt = 2 units in Britain.

> The average beer is stronger than it was 20 years ago

I very much doubt this. High strength lagers are much less popular than they were 20 years ago, not least because of beer tax that scales with strength. http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/news/11455150/Britain...

This is probably very, very regional.

IPA's have grown in popularity, for what it's worth, and are generally higher alcohol (5-6% in UK, 7-10% in the US).

The biggest selling cask ale in the UK (Greene King IPA), is 3.6% abv

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.

*edit: there is no EU standard, UK 8g, France 10g, Germany 14g https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_drink#Definitions_in_...

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.

3.5 is still really low. Even stuff like Miller/Coors Lite is 4.2%. Bud is 5%.

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?

And where is this university located?

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.

There is a trend right now of "session beers" that clock in at under 5% so that you can drink more or get less drunk.

Blue moon, which I prefer, sits right at 3.2%.

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.

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