Beer or wine, it’s all not fine for tipplers

BEER before wine and you’ll feel fine? So goes the tactical tippler’s adage.

But is there any truth in it? It appears not, for hangovers are much the same whatever the order of drinks, a study found.

Researchers have also debunked advice that drinkers choose “grape or grain but never the twain’” because consuming wine or beer alone makes no difference either.

Scientists from Cambridge University and Witten/herdecke University in Germany asked 90 participants to try different drinks combinations over two evenings.

Some switched between drinking wine before beer and beer before wine, while another group consumed one alcohol type the first evening and the other the second.

The day after each test, the group reported on their hangovers, ranking symptoms including tiredness, headache strength, nausea and dizziness.

The results show the adage “beer before wine and you’ll feel fine, wine before beer and you’ll feel queer” is simply wrong as the hangovers were comparable.

Perhaps unsurprisingly, the authors concluded it is how much alcohol you drink, not which type, which has the biggest impact on hangover severity.

Lead author Joran Kochling of Witten/herdecke University said: “Using white wine and lager beer, we didn’t find any truth in the idea that drinking beer before wine gives you a milder hangover.

“The only reliable way of predicting how miserable you’ll feel the next day is by how drunk you feel and whether you are sick. We should all pay attention to these red flags when drinking.”

Folk wisdom had suggested there may have been some truth in the “beer before wine” adage. It was said that someone consuming a drink with higher alcohol content, such as wine, may feel they are cutting back when they switch to lower-alcohol beer. This could mean they drink more, faster.

However, this study, which appears in the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, shows that is a myth. | Daily Mail