Why do you have to be 21 to drink, in America

[keith99]

Because mass market American beer is so bad that drinking it rapidly is the only way to get it down.

Unlike European beer that is actually worth drinking slowly.

 

[JackofSpades]

Unlike European beer that is actually worth drinking slowly.

I guess it's the better ones that get exported. One of the most popular draft beers here is commonly called poronkusi (= reindeer pee), I think it's mostly been drank for other reasons than fine taste...

 

[keith99]

I guess it's the better ones that get exported. One of the most popular draft beers here is commonly called poronkusi (= reindeer pee), I think it's mostly been drank for other reasons than fine taste...

Yea but reindeer pee still sounds more delicate and cultured than horse pee!

There was a beer from Texas that had a horse on the label and the joke was the label had a picture of the factory!

 

[JackofSpades]

Yeah, it's similar story with that beer, they advirtise with all kind of images of Lapland, like reindeers.

I find it kinda fascinating how petnames of beers have similar history, no matter where you go. Few hundred years of history on a different continent seems to not have much impact on basic human mind.

 

[SnowyMacie]

Yea but reindeer pee still sounds more delicate and cultured than horse pee!

There was a beer from Texas that had a horse on the label and the joke was the label had a picture of the factory!

I'm not sure what beer that was. The Texas beers that I know about are Shiner and Lone Star. Shiner Bock is okay, Lone Star is liquid trash. Shiner has a ram and Lone Star has a star. That Budweiser commercial that fired shots at mircobrewies saying "People who drink are beer actually beer"...my friends and I were all "lol...jokes." I drink Stella, Guinness, Shock Top, or Blue Moon.

 

[GQ Chris]

That's really surprising, typically human males become very civilized and sophisticated when drunk. *cough*

Yeah, American males have an affinity for d-baggery when it comes to drinking,I don't know why.

 

[Gnarwhal]

I have lived in the US, since last September. I still, haven't found, a reason, for this law? The university students here, that I've gotten to know,they, are as mature, as in Europe, where you can drink, at a younger age.

We tend to be a society of extremes, on the one end you have remnants of the Temperance and Prohibitionist movements railing against alcohol, on the other you have places like Las Vegas where people spend entire weeks or weekends completely faced.

Culturally, I just don't think we manage our liquor the way Europeans do. It's no big deal in Europe to drink at 18. I remember in middle school a rather tall girl told us about her summer trip to Germany where they allowed her to drink because she could see over the bar. If the U.S. switched the law now, it would probably be chaotic, at least for a period of time until the initial excitement wore off.

Wanna explain a bit?

Here being publicly drunk is not really big deal. If I saw any of my bosses totally wasted crawling on street at saturday night, it would be embarassing for him/her but not really that scandalous.

I think the difference can be found just in the nomenclature. Here we have "bars" and in Europe (or at least in the UK) you have "pubs". That right there inspires an entirely different approach to drinking. Here, most people go to bars for two reasons: get blackout drunk and/or find a one-night-stand.

Now that's not an absolute, there is an undercurrent of bar culture that's trying to change that and bring better establishments onto the scene. I've noticed it with the hipsters, they're more interested in "pub culture" than "bar culture" so you have establishments where the idea is to have a pint or two and some meaningful conversation, maybe even some academic debate. Not get hammered and pickup a ho.

So in America legally you have to be 21, but do most young people actually abide by that or not?

Many do, some don't. When I was 19 I was overseas for a little while, including the UK and I thought it was amazing that I could order a beer with my dinner. There were 1-2 times between that and turning 21 that I drank, and on both occasions I drank too much - but it was in fairly safe conditions.

When I turned 21, I got plowed, because I was dumb like that. After that though, I've generally changed my mindset. I love beer, but I might only have 1-2 a week at most. I don't go to the bars nightly like a lot of college folks do. I'll meet a friend there to chat over a few beers but we don't get drunk. It's just pathetic that way.

 

[keith99]

I'm not sure what beer that was. The Texas beers that I know about are Shiner and Lone Star. Shiner Bock is okay, Lone Star is liquid trash. Shiner has a ram and Lone Star has a star. That Budweiser commercial that fired shots at mircobrewies saying "People who drink are beer actually beer"...my friends and I were all "lol...jokes." I drink Stella, Guinness, Shock Top, or Blue Moon.

It may have been Lone Star. It may be gone. I was 22 when I worked in Texas, that was a while ago.

I'm partial to Newcastle. Stella is drinkable and the beer of choice of many of my friends, especially the South Africans.

 

[Gnarwhal]

I love Newcastle.

But my favorite is my hometown brewery - Sierra Nevada.

 

[pittsflyer]

Because its only 16 to drive and they hand out drivers licences like candy. As a responsible nation you have to pick one, either young drinking age or young driving age, NOT both unless you want out of control insurance rates and a lot more dead people on the roads.

I like the European model for drivers licences, make it like getting a pilots licence, set the bar high and make consequences for incompetent driving higher. If you only have professional drivers on the road you can raise speed limits and don't have to have a billion traffic controls.

 

[SnowyMacie]

It may have been Lone Star. It may be gone. I was 22 when I worked in Texas, that was a while ago.

or a beer that was so bad it's no longer sold anymore.

 

[Sketcher]

Because mass market American beer is so bad that drinking it rapidly is the only way to get it down.

Unlike European beer that is actually worth drinking slowly.

I come from a major microbrew state. We enjoy real beer here. When I visit other states and review their selections, I am regularly disappointed.

 

[Nanopants]

I was kind of curious, and I found an interesting article which says that binge drinking actually occurs more often in America than Europe, which is not all that surprising. While the age limit may be for pragmatic reasons, I tend to think it's because we typically just don't know how to handle our alcohol very well.

 

[JackofSpades]

We tend to be a society of extremes, on the one end you have remnants of the Temperance and Prohibitionist movements railing against alcohol, on the other you have places like Las Vegas where people spend entire weeks or weekends completely faced.

Makes sense. Pretty much everything you wrote in that post was kinda interesting.

This is getting OT but what I've noticed is that politics in Europe seem to generally have less religious tendencies than politics in USA. Why I find it odd is that based on official political doctrines, it would make more sense if it was other way around.

USA has had no official national religion in centuries while Europe has long history of it with state churches etc. even couple attempts for outright Christian theocracies.

It's like both continents had purposedly wanted to make official line that is contradictory to their actual way of life.

 

[Rhamiel]

Makes sense. Pretty much everything you wrote in that post was kinda interesting.

This is getting OT but what I've noticed is that politics in Europe seem to generally have less religious tendencies than politics in USA. Why I find it odd is that based on official political doctrines, it would make more sense if it was other way around.

USA has had no official national religion in centuries while Europe has long history of it with state churches etc. even couple attempts for outright Christian theocracies.

It's like both continents had purposedly wanted to make official line that is contradictory to their actual way of life.

well in the Europe had the French Revolution (late 1700's) and Napoleon and the unifications of Italy and Germany (1800's) all of those movements went on the spectrum from Atheistic to just Anticlerical

in the 1800's America had "The Second Great Awakening"
Second Great Awakening - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
really, if you look at the history of the USA, from the early 1800's until about the 1920's we had many Revivals that shaped the religious and cultural face of America

so yeah, that is kind of where the differences come from
like American politicians regularly talk about their faith
we are becoming more secular though

 

[JackofSpades]

I don't want to derail this so I made another thread:

http://www.christianforums.com/showthread.php?p=67370235#post67370235

 

[Fenny the Fox]

I was kind of curious, and I found an interesting article which says that binge drinking actually occurs more often in America than Europe, which is not all that surprising. While the age limit may be for pragmatic reasons, I tend to think it's because we typically just don't know how to handle our alcohol very well.

At the same time, we actually don't have a particularly more prevalent occurrence of alcoholism/alcohol use disorder than most of Europe (in fact it is lower than much of Europe). At least according to WHO data, anyway.
WHO | Prevalence of alcohol use disorders

 

[Fallior]

I know that getting drunk is a sin, but I don't know why the law is 21 except for the brain development part. Which I thought your brain wasn't fully developed until 25 or 30, but..

 

[redblue22]

edit

 

[Gnarwhal]

I know that getting drunk is a sin, but I don't know why the law is 21 except for the brain development part. Which I thought your brain wasn't fully developed until 25 or 30, but..

Yes, that's true. So 21 is kind of moot. I think 18 makes the most sense, that's when most European nations saw fit to allow legal drinking and it works for them. Our country allows it's citizens to vote and enlist in the armed forces at 18, but really all those who drink under 21 are going to do so whether or not it's legal. If they want alcohol, they'll find a way to get it and they'll drink it.

The problem is, with the party culture we live in today, that transition from 21 to 18 would be really rough. We would probably see a surge in alcohol-related crimes until the novelty of the change wore off but it would even out eventually.