Pint for the fella and a glass of white wine for the ladies

[Eight Taiwanese Teenagers]

I have a dilemma.

In recent weeks I have found that even a modest amount of beer gives me the most horrific hangovers. Now this has always happened to me every now and again, but it has become a regular and predictable occurence - a sharp throbbing pain behind my eyes which makes me feel sick after a while. The other day I felt sick as a dog after just a couple of pints. I'm thinking my body must be reacting to something in the beer. This has occured after canned beer, bottled beer, draft beer, both lagers and ales (I don't like stout). I am dismayed.

I know it's not the alcohol in itself which is causing me grief, I have had recent nights of drinking lots of wine, and felt right as rain the next day. Which leads to my dilemma... how does a young and virile man such as myself go out and enjoy himself wiv da lads while avoiding beer?

A sensible person would say give up alcohol. I would politely suggest that they bugger off.

[its not cool to be weird]

Wow savage. How frequently do you drink, sounds like a break might be in order, try a week off and see if that helps your beer tolerance. Do you drink shit beer?

Wine is perfectly respectable, well red is, but its usually shite in pubs. So the only solution I can see is for you to light up and nurse a few fingers of scotch over the evening. No one can call that less than manly, plus you'll attract more ladies who'll see you as one of those mysterious quiet types.

[Hank_Kingsley]

Try and get your hands on some anti-hangover drugs:

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2003/sep/23/film.russia

[biggytitbo]

I have a dilemma.

In recent weeks I have found that even a modest amount of beer gives me the most horrific hangovers. Now this has always happened to me every now and again, but it has become a regular and predictable occurence - a sharp throbbing pain behind my eyes which makes me feel sick after a while. The other day I felt sick as a dog after just a couple of pints. I'm thinking my body must be reacting to something in the beer. This has occured after canned beer, bottled beer, draft beer, both lagers and ales (I don't like stout). I am dismayed.

I know it's not the alcohol in itself which is causing me grief, I have had recent nights of drinking lots of wine, and felt right as rain the next day. Which leads to my dilemma... how does a young and virile man such as myself go out and enjoy himself wiv da lads while avoiding beer?

A sensible person would say give up alcohol. I would politely suggest that they bugger off.

I am a cider drinker
I drinks it all of the day
I am a cider drinker
It soothes all me troubles away
Ooh aargh ooh argh aay

[SetToStun]

Have you tried cider at all?

A couple of mates of mine seem to have developed an allergy to whatever the fuck it is they put in beer these days, although it seems to rather more on the lager side than the real ale. One of them works in Germany and is happy to report that he suffers no reaction to (or hangover from) real German lager whatsoever. Have you tried properly imported continental beers?

[Eight Taiwanese Teenagers]

I don't like cider at all.

I tried RU-21 a few years back. Did nothing whatsoever.

[alan nagsworth]

It's probably all those crazy veggibles and seedlings they put in beer wot makes you sick. White spirit's clean as nature intended and it does a grand job of cleaning you out, aswell.

[robs_bro]

Warsteiner is a great German beer that produces relatively little hangover effects.

Stella (UK brewed), on the hand, is a big pile of shite that contains so many chemicals it makes you go mad and then suffer the most awful hangovers.

[CaledonianGonzo]

Have you tried moving onto real ales - the hand-pumped stuff, as opposed to gas-pressured, preservative laced fizzy lagers?  The guy I sit next to at work is always gabbling on about the hangover advantages of drinking additive-free real ale and he may have a point.

[boxofslice]

Have you thought about converting to hard narcotics like Heroin or Crack? Give it a go and let us know how you got on.

[Emma Raducanu]

Have you considered alcopops instead?

[Marv Orange]

drink brown spirits only double at a time

[Prescription Dinosaur]

Stella (UK brewed), on the hand, is a big pile of shite that contains so many chemicals it makes you go mad and then suffer the most awful hangovers.

Everyone seems to have this nebulous idea that lager is full of "chemicals" despite the only ingredients being water, hops and barley. If anyone could point me to what these chemicals are I'd be interested, but also amazed.

As someone earlier mentioned, whisky. You'll get a splitting headache the next morning, but at least you'll have the satisfaction of having got roaring drunk the night before.

[Mary Hinge]

I am a cider drinker
I drinks it all of the day
I am a cider drinker
It soothes all me troubles away
Ooh aargh ooh argh aay

Biggytitbo, that's comedy GOLD right there!

Occasional spirits drinker here. Had the same problem with wine/champagne all my life, the hangover on the least amount just kills me so I've had to give up on wine. Does cause social awkwardness, especially on dates! I just have to have water or a Gin and Tonic. Doubt that's a suitable option in your case, though.

[Funcrusher]

It's a shame that you don't like stout, since that would have been my suggestion. The first time I had a night out drinking Guiness, the lack of raging hangover the next day was a revelation, and I've never gone back to horrible plastic lagers. On a couple of occasions when I've been forced to drink crap lager on a night out, I've had a hangover the next day so disabling I was stuck in bed for two days, since my body just can't cope with all the poisonous shit chemicals they put in the stuff.

[robs_bro]

Everyone seems to have this nebulous idea that lager is full of "chemicals" despite the only ingredients being water, hops and barley. If anyone could point me to what these chemicals are I'd be interested, but also amazed.

As someone earlier mentioned, whisky. You'll get a splitting headache the next morning, but at least you'll have the satisfaction of having got roaring drunk the night before.

Propylene glycol alginate - foaming agent
Potassium metabisulphite - preservative
Betaglucanase - brewing accelerant
Ammonia caramel - colouring
Rhoisoalpha acids - more stable catalysed form of alpha acids
Sulphur dioxide - preservative
Amyloglucosidase - accelerant for use in producing malt
Silicone - anti-foaming agent

[variant]

Propylene glycol alginate - foaming agent
Silicone - anti-foaming agent

Does this sound wrong to anyone else?

[Prescription Dinosaur]

Consider me told. But - according to this BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4942262.stm, which is where I presume you got those from, they are only in the cheaper drinks that don't give you ingredients lists, which Stella does - even the stuff brewed in the UK. I suspect its hangover-inducing properties are due to it's relatively high alcohol content as much as anything else.

[drberbatov]

Which leads to my dilemma... how does a young and virile man such as myself go out and enjoy himself wiv da lads while avoiding beer?

Drink JD and Coke, but avoid straws and stirers. Lemmy drinks this and what a perfect example of a real man he is.

[Eight Taiwanese Teenagers]

Drinking sweet drinks all night makes my teeth hurt!

I've been reading up about this, in particular this article, http://cdavies.wordpress.com/2007/03/27/beer-allergies/.

Given that I often do get a blocked nose along with my hangovers, I'm thinking I am a bit allergic to beer. If I consider the fact that my period of beer intolerance has coincided with my short annual hayfever problem (unusually, I sneeze and sniffle my way through the blossom season, but seem OK with the grass and tree pollens associated with the summer), I think I can draw an initial conclusion that I shouldn't drink beer when the trees are blossoming!

[Mary Hinge]

Propylene glycol alginate - foaming agent
Potassium metabisulphite - preservative
Betaglucanase - brewing accelerant
Ammonia caramel - colouring
Rhoisoalpha acids - more stable catalysed form of alpha acids
Sulphur dioxide - preservative
Amyloglucosidase - accelerant for use in producing malt
Silicone - anti-foaming agent

Glycol Alginate, Betaglucanase and Rhoisoalpha will all be appearing as aliens in the new series of Doctor Who.

[robs_bro]

Consider me told. But - according to this BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4942262.stm, which is where I presume you got those from, they are only in the cheaper drinks that don't give you ingredients lists, which Stella does - even the stuff brewed in the UK. I suspect its hangover-inducing properties are due to it's relatively high alcohol content as much as anything else.

I found some of them on there, yes. But only after doing some googling and first finding this one:
http://www.answerbag.com/q_view/470770

Re: high alcohol content, I can drink loads of red wine and not suffer half as bad as on cooking lager (i.e. your cheap UK-brewed shit that includes Stella - 'reassuringly expensive' my arsehole [PS I note they've rebranded recently and dropped that tagline along with the moniker 'Stella' - it's Artois, don't you know]), but I can also drink loads of decent German lager (e.g. Warsteiner) and not suffer either. For me it really is all about the shit they put in UK beer to make it cheaper to produce, last longer, look better, taste better, etc.

PS just because German lager is more pure, it doesn't stop me acting like a nob-head when I've had too much to drink...

[mothman]

The past five years I've been getting these terrible migraines. They're so bad that I'll do anything to avoid any sort of headache, so have developed an aversion to getting drunk  in case I get a hangover. I even cut out alcohol for a while, and still avoid wine even now, preferring to have just one beer or cider.

[Pedro_Bear]

The solution is obviously 40 oz. bottles of high gravity malt liquor: cheap, potent, and with a memory-loss component that excludes all this pussy-talk of allergies. You won't remember if it has side-effects.

That or mouthwash, 40% alcohol and as affordable as it is fresh-smelling. You might even get a date with a dentist as a bonus.

Or, you just aren't drinking enough beer:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hD3deQmyRHw

[biggytitbo]

MY theory about hangovers is it's not the alcohol, if anything the alcohol acts as an anaesthetic which means you don't feel the pain until its starts to wear off the morning after. Its the other ingredients that cause the food poisoning. I can drink any lager and it will give me a bad headache but I'm completely unscathed by cider that's twice the strength.

[Little Hoover]

I can't have much alcohol, because of the way they interfere with my meds, although I've got a weak stomach anyway and can't handle much, cheap wine gives you bad hangovers, liquor is too strong, the high alcohol to low water ratio gives me a headache, and with beer, I need to actually be thirsty to be able to drink that amount of liquid. I don't understand how people can physically drink so much without having to go to toilet about 50 times in a night it actually passes through me, but people seem like they must have sponges inside them to soak it all up. The best way for me seems to be drinking small bottles of a fairly strong beer maybe a 6.5 vol - Same amount of alcohol as in a pint of piss weak carling, but still getting a relatively good amount of water to stay hydrated.

[purlieu]

Red wine.  Any other alcohol is a waste.

[Mindbear]

The only hangovers I ever suffered were when I drank until I vomited or I got alcohol poisoning. I haven't drunk a drop since new years eve 1996. I do sometimes get a bit jealous when everyone is laughing hysterically at stuff that isn't really that funny, but to be honest, I live quite happily without drinking.

[NoSleep]

Hangovers don't usual relate to alcohol consumption with me. Or rather, the hangover effects of the actual alcohol are tolerable, but there's all these other alcohol-like fusel oils created in the brewing process that can be higher or lower in content, dependent on the particular beer or wine. It's the fusel oils that can make you feel really sick and give you a headache, whereas alcohol itself seems to just make me feel a bit vague the next day. As somebody mentioned earlier, Guinness seems particularly clean in this respect, and generally speaking you get what you pay for - cheap alcohol is full of non-alcohol poison.

This is also true with spirits, which are distilled in a way to remove as much of the fusel oils as possible whilst keeping the alcohol. The first stuff that comes off the still is rejected as is the later stuff (the tops and tails) as this represents liquids that are more and less volatile than the desired alcohol. Triple distilling takes the spirit through this process of purification a further two times, but doesn't (on the label) mean you're in for a clean drink - you get what you pay for once again - it's always worth paying a few quid more for a Scotch than the price of Bells (which'll leave your head pounding the next day). That said, Queen Margot, in Lidl, leaves you alone the next day - and it's well cheap.

[Suttonpubcrawl]

Consider me told. But - according to this BBC article http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/4942262.stm, which is where I presume you got those from, they are only in the cheaper drinks that don't give you ingredients lists, which Stella does - even the stuff brewed in the UK. I suspect its hangover-inducing properties are due to it's relatively high alcohol content as much as anything else.

I think Stella causes terrible hangovers because drinking it damages an important portion of your soul.

The solution is obviously 40 oz. bottles of high gravity malt liquor: cheap, potent, and with a memory-loss component that excludes all this pussy-talk of allergies. You won't remember if it has side-effects.

I'll have you know that in this country we call it super strength lager. And regulars in the chatroom and the VW drinking log thread may be aware that Tennent's is the best brand.

I've found that in my personal experience, hangovers are easier to avoid if you do some exercise. In periods where I've been doing little exercise I've tended to get absolutely terrible hangovers, whereas when I'm doing more exercise I can often avoid them despite drinking to ridiculous levels of excess. It doesn't even have to be that much exercise, say one to one and a half hours of cycling. If it's cycling, you can get your exercise cycling to and from the pub. Bonus! And an even better bonus of that is that you can cycle home really fast because in your drunken stupor you won't feel the tiredness in your legs! Also, you'll burn off some alcohol on the way home. Note: this advice is probably very bad and dangerous.

I've also found that exercise can help to alleviate a hangover. A few times when I've had a hangover I've gone for a walk or a bike ride because sitting or lying down at home I've felt like complete shit but up and about I feel not too bad.