Allowed to have a pint..?

Kangaroo

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I really need some help with these questions, especially from UK residents. I've googled a bit, but I would like to know how it works in real life.. Me and some friends are going to London this autumn. They are all 18, and well, I'm not. What I'm wondering is if it's possible for me to have a drink with my mates when we are eating or at a pub. I've found some different answers to this, so I'm hoping to sort this one out.

If I've understood this correctly one of my mates can order a drink for me together with a meal as long as they are paying for it. Or do they not count as adult in some way..? And what about going to a pub, I know that I'm allowed to be there by law (although not drinking if I don't have a meal with it), but do the pubs enforce age limits (at say.. 18?) by the door? And when getting in, how hard is the age limit enforcement..?

Sorry if this is pushing at the edge of the forum rules or something. We are just wanting to have a trip that is as fun as possible, so the goal isn't getting wasted, just to have a good time.
 
I really need some help with these questions, especially from UK residents. I've googled a bit, but I would like to know how it works in real life.. Me and some friends are going to London this autumn. They are all 18, and well, I'm not. What I'm wondering is if it's possible for me to have a drink with my mates when we are eating or at a pub. I've found some different answers to this, so I'm hoping to sort this one out.

If I've understood this correctly one of my mates can order a drink for me together with a meal as long as they are paying for it. Or do they not count as adult in some way..? And what about going to a pub, I know that I'm allowed to be there by law (although not drinking if I don't have a meal with it), but do the pubs enforce age limits (at say.. 18?) by the door? And when getting in, how hard is the age limit enforcement..?

Sorry if this is pushing at the edge of the forum rules or something. We are just wanting to have a trip that is as fun as possible, so the goal isn't getting wasted, just to have a good time.

Legally speaking, you are allowed to have a drink as long as it is with a meal in a pub, and an adult (18+) orders it for you. However, not many landlords know about this, and to be honest they'd rather play safe than sorry.

As for going in and buying drinks underage, to be honest many people, myself included when I was younger, do it and did it. The trick is either finding fake ID (hard and very illegal) or finding a pub that doesn't have bouncers at the front door (less hard and less illegal). Even then you may well be asked for ID at the bar. Depends where you go in London. Late at night many pubs will have bouncers checking ID at the door, during the day very few will (if any). In the early evening it's variable.

One thing you can do is the three of you go up to the bar and order (say) 3 beers. If they ask for ID, your two mates can produce theirs and you can say "Sorry, left mine at the hotel". Either they believe you or they don't, if they do you get a beer, if they don't they can't say you're a liar and you could just order a coke.

I don't know about the situation in London, but in Glasgow it was easy enough to buy drinks underage. I don't know what you look like, by the way, but looking older helps, looking younger doesn't. Also, don't look nervous. After all, 18+ year olds don't have any worries about being "carded" (to use an Americanism).
 
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If you look old enough you probably won't have a problem anyway. I would say the majority of people start drinking in pubs from 16 in this country. It is probably easier to buy a drink underage in a pub than it is to buy a drink from a supermarket.
 
If you look old enough you probably won't have a problem anyway. I would say the majority of people start drinking in pubs from 16 in this country. It is probably easier to buy a drink underage in a pub than it is to buy a drink from a supermarket.

similar setup with our alcohol serving here, shops generally check ID bar's they rarely have enough time to check your ID (they'll only generally ask if you're a weiner or act like you're not supposed to be buying alcohol -- some people make it painfully obvious)
 
Stand at the bar and say in a loud voice "I'd like some, er, beer please." That will get you thrown out no problem.
 
Stand at the bar and say in a loud voice "I'd like some, er, beer please." That will get you thrown out no problem.

"I'd like a pint of beer" will get you thrown out, sure, but you'll get roundly mocked beforehand.

Make sure to specify what beer / cider / poofjuice you want when ordering it - Pint of Guinness / Strongbow / Bacardi Breezer please
 
Stand at the bar and say in a loud voice "I'd like some, er, beer please." That will get you thrown out no problem.

I Actually did that when I was 16, the 1st time ever to order a beer, I walked up to the bar and said " a pint of beer please"

The barman said "what sort of beer" and I was totally stumped, in the end I said "that one".

Luckily I was with someone older and we were eating so it was all above board... but the barman was pissing himself laughing
 
start off with the good stuff then work your way down to the cheaper and nasty stuff when you don't care anymore.
 
No, omit the word "pint" - that is the key bit really... Actually not specifying which type of beer will do it too, so normally - Special, Bitter, Lager, or then by specific name like "Stella". As in "I'll have a pint of Stella, what do you blokes want" FTW.

EDIT/ See how I got my beer first - handy tip that.
 
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I'd like to use this thread to point out that my software company allows drinking on the job, which is awesome.

Yes, completely unrelated.
 
Mhm, as I thought then. It will be down to luck and impressions. And I'll definitely be specific. Thanks to everyone for rather good answers, and if anyone have got a better idea (that still includes get to have a drink at the pub) I would be happy to get to know of it. :)
 
Why not just drink non-alcoholic drinks while you're out with your friends? Maybe have one of them stop on the way back to the hotel room and pick up some beer for you to drink in the room?

Why do you feel as though you have to drink in order to have a good time? Are you a boring person when you're not drinking? Are you a massive asshole when you don't have booze in your system? Do you have some other character flaws that can only be covered up with alcohol, causing your friends to not wish to associate with you unless you have had a few beers?
Boring? Check. Asshole? Check. Character flaws? For sure.

Yes, I'm most of the things you mentioned there, but that isn't affected by the alcohol. Although, when my friends drink I'd like to be able to have a drink as well or at least not spoil their trip by not being able to even put my foot in a pub, so that they (and they are very sympathetic and would not just leave me at the hotel room) wouldn't have to think of me all the time. If I drink or not doesn't really matter, but I think it's more fun to be as tipsy as the rest of them.
 
We have something similar here, but it's much more restrictive. They have to be your parent or legal guardian and might be asked to show proof of this. Even so, the parent must order the beverage and take delivery of it. Then they themselves may give the underage person the drink. If the parent has to leave the table for any reason, the server is supposed to remove the beverage from the table until the parent returns.

It's different with bottle shops though, there is an offense to supply alcohol to a minor from memory (you can be refused service by the store if they beleive that you're buying it for a kid)
 
Those of you that are traveling to the US from overseas, beware. These are the things that restaurants have to deal with here, and could very easily cause you to be denied a drink altogether.
I was at a party a few years back and there were some German exchange students there (both 18 if I remember right) and they had just gotten into the country a few days before. Apparently they didn't know how anal and stupid this country is as far as alcohol sales go and they had the greatest 'oh shit' looks on their faces when they learned they wouldn't be able to buy it here.

A few months ago a friend of mine had a birthday party at a bar and I wanted to buy him a shot. Even though he clearly looks older than 21 I couldn't buy the drink for him without showing both our IDs. That coupled with the ridiculously high price for the drinks made it not worth it at all. I said to the bartender "If you're going to be that anal about it, forget it." as I walked off.

God I hate MADD so damn much.
 
Well in the US, it would just be so much easier if they just lowered the drinking age back to 18. But sadly, thats never going to happen.
 
We're very, very, very anally retentive about booze here (speaking from a restaurant's perspective). The way the laws are set up, a slight mistake in a very complex system of rules and regulations could result in MASSIVE penalties (including potentially jail time for the person that served the drinks).

I think it's bullshit, personally. Using the bar/restaurant as a scapegoat for someone else's behavior is absolute crap.

It's not the bar/restaurant's fault. They want to avoid prosecution or fines or whatever, so they're going to stick very tightly to the rules.

Same way the rule I mentioned - the '16+ ok with meal' rule - is not always known of or applied by barmen in the UK. Some don't know about it, and some assume that no under-18s are allowed to drink in pubs or bars under any circumstances. Either way, in the UK it's the barman's prerogative to serve you or not, and screaming about it being a free country and the law will just get you kicked out.

Why not just drink non-alcoholic drinks while you're out with your friends? Maybe have one of them stop on the way back to the hotel room and pick up some beer for you to drink in the room?

Why do you feel as though you have to drink in order to have a good time? Are you a boring person when you're not drinking? Are you a massive asshole when you don't have booze in your system? Do you have some other character flaws that can only be covered up with alcohol, causing your friends to not wish to associate with you unless you have had a few beers?

Britain is the country of the pub, and is famous for pubs and bars. If I was coming to the UK as a foreigner, I'd want to have a drink. Especially if it was with two friends who are legal to drink in the country I come from (18 in Sweden).

He's googled, found conflicting information and is asking if it's legal to have a drink. He said just that - "a drink". I doubt he's looking to get off his face, he's asked if he can have one drink. With a meal. I don't think that's unreasonable or drinking to excess.

It seems unfair, too, to accuse him of covering up character flaws or being an asshole when sober (I've found that assholes-when-sober usually end up being bigger-assholes-when-drunk). I'll often have a drink if I'm talking with friends. I'm not covering up flaws, and I'm not wanting to get very drunk. It's simply a sociable thing to do, and more to the point the drink tends to be pretty tasty.

How would that make things any easier? It would just make things different.

If nothing else, lowering the drinking age to 18 will bring the US's drinking age in line with much of the rest of the world

That is not a reasonable argument to lower the drinking age, by the way! I'm just pointing it out.

Something that potentially is an argument to lower the drinking age is that, at 19, you can do a million things in the US - drive, join the army, vote etc - but you can't have a beer. Many people (myself included) think that doesn't seem quite right.
 
^ On the contrary I think that's more than a reasonable argument to lower the drinking age, it's a justifiable reason. At 19, even 18, you can do all of those things because you're legally an adult. An 18 year old is just as much an adult as a 58 year old, just like whites and blacks are considered equal in the word of the law. So imagine if Congress passed a new law making it illegal for blacks to buy or consume alcohol. There would be riots in the streets! Yet it's perfectly okay to pass the same treatment onto 18-20 year old adults solely because of their age. That boggles my mind.

The problem isn't a couple 19 year olds getting together and having a few beers. The real problem is the thousands of repeat drunk driving offenders who are still on the roads. Why are repeat offenders allowed to keep driving while those who aren't even a part of the problem aren't allowed to enjoy all the rights and responsibilities of adulthood?

The way in which young people are treated in the legal sense in this country is really back asswards. A 16 year old kid can be tried as an adult in court, yet a 20 year old adult can't be treated like one in a bar.

I was under the impression that we declared independence from Britain to escape tyrannical laws like this, not to come up with them ourselves.
 
If parents are doing their job, it doesn't matter when a kid first wraps his fingers around a beer. They're going to know not to abuse it. Consequently, if the parents aren't doing their job, the kid isn't going to know how to behave and will very-likely begin abusing alcohol. .

This is a very good point.

In the UK, with an 18 drinking age, there's huge problems involving under-age drinking and alcohol abuse.
On the flipside, France has an 18 drinking age but many less problems, mainly due to acceptance of alcohol in the culture and children being around alcohol from an early age. It wouldn't be unusual, at a family Sunday lunch (for example), for the teenagers to be offered a glass.

I'm not saying that there are no alcohol problems in France, or that there are no good parenting systems in the UK for alcohol, just that the culture surrounding alcohol is very important in terms of reducing problems.

And whilst legislating to reduce or increase the drinking age is easy, changing the culture surrounding alcohol is not, which is why problems continue in the UK. Then again, introducing a law last year in the UK making 24-hour openings for pubs really didn't help.



edit - In Scotland we've a big alcohol problem. The SNP goverment has tried some pilot schemes - including limiting sales in shops to 21s and above, but keeping the 18 limit for pubs, bars and clubs. You'd have to combine that with more random testing of buying drinks underage (send in 'mystery shoppers' to try and buy things) and harder punishments for shops caught selling, but it could well make a difference.
 
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If you are old enough to die for your country, then you are old enough to make up your own mind about taking a drink - either put up the age for combat soldiers to 21 or lower the drinking age.
 
That's exactly why the "change the legal age to 18 to match the rest of the world" argument doesn't work. You can't apply one rule universally to the entire world and expect it to be the right fit for each and every local environment.

Our culture treats alcohol almost like sex; it's still somewhat taboo to discuss with your kids for some reason. When they grow up and go out on their own, they're bombarded with these things. There's a mystique about drinking a beer. It's new to them. Almost forbidden (sometimes literally forbidden for those still under the legal drinking age).

Yes, I've had some interesting experiences with 18-21 year old Americans who come to the UK for the first time, go out to a bar or a shop, and buy a beer and think they're giant rebels and kings of the drunken world.

It's one beer; it's really not a big deal. Although I suppose it would be if I was in their shoes.

The answer isn't to reduce or raise the legal age; the answer is education. Unfortunately age itself seems to have very little to do with whether or not that person is an alcoholic; I've met plenty that were below 20, plenty that were over 40, and plenty who were somewhere in between.

It takes personal self-restraint and a sense of responsibility to say "you know, I shouldn't get shit-faced and attempt to drive home". That can't be regulated by age; it's something that must be instilled at an early age by parents.

Education definitely has a part to play, but a lot of that has to come from the parents. And a little bit has to come from personal experience - "oh dear god, that was awful what I did last night, I'm not drinking heavily again". Each person has their own limit that only they know, and (inevitably) it's found through experience.

I don't know anything about the US's policy about alcohol education, but if it's anything like the US's sex-ed policy don't do it kids you'll go to hell then I'm not convinced by it.

On the other hand, drink-driving (which I believe is a separate, yet related, issue) is a matter of very strict education, from parents, the police and the government, with one simple message : don't.
 
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