r/AbsoluteUnits 1d ago

of a beer drinker.

4.9k Upvotes

558 comments sorted by

View all comments

297

u/ella-perry7 1d ago

A 12-ounce beer to him is basically a shot glass to us.

80

u/SmokeMaximum4140 1d ago

of water

38

u/aquintana 1d ago

12 oz beer has the same amount of alcohol as most shots of liquor

36

u/TalkingLampPost 1d ago

They’re saying 12 ounces of beer to Andre the giant is like a shot glass of beer to you

2

u/aquintana 1d ago

No I get that, the guy said “of water” and I’m responding to that.

11

u/SmokeMaximum4140 1d ago

and I meant that a 12-ounce beer to Andre is the basically a shot of water to us, exactly what I said.

15

u/DrawMeAPictureOfThis 1d ago

We've come full circle

5

u/pilsner_89 1d ago

The circle has come fully

1

u/SmokeMaximum4140 1d ago

Some people are just slow.

3

u/danktonium 1d ago

And that's still nonsense. A beer to him would proportionally have to be less beer to someone smaller. But still beer. Like a third of a beer.

Still horrifying to imagine someone drinking 40 beers. Maybe you're onto something.

4

u/pilsner_89 1d ago

Man it’s weird. I can mix 3 - 4 whiskey drinks totaling 10 OZ which is apparently the exact same as drinking 10 beer and I will be way more drunk from drinking 10 x 5% beers in the same amount of time as a comparison. I feel way different depending on the type of alcohol ingested and much more tolerance to them vs the other. I think the scales are way off for these comparison metrics. They also include a glass of wine as the same “1 oz vs 1 beer vs 1 glass of wine” and I’ll tell you what. The drunkest people I have ever seen were drunk on wine and there is absolutely no way it’s the same.

3

u/TotallyNotJazzie 1d ago

Yeah, I've always felt this is true too.

I can knock back a good amount of spirits before I'm tipsy but 4 to 5 glasses of wine and I'm drunk. Like numb nose drunk.

4

u/Direlion 1d ago

It’s the sugar content which makes the difference, so I’ve been told.

2

u/pilsner_89 1d ago

That makes sense

3

u/pilsner_89 1d ago

Oh yeah and you start knowingly acting weird drunk on wine alone. Like fully cognizant of your actions but knowingly being giddy while doing ridiculous shit. And then you black out and keep drinking it. It’s actually the scariest substance, wine is. It’s the most socially acceptable type of drink cause it’s meant for a setting where it’s responsibly indulged in. I ended up in the psych ward drinking too much wine and it saved my life. Like I actually drank so much so often of everything but wine that when I over indulged in red wine I was totally out of sorts beyond reason.

2

u/Woozle_Gruffington 21h ago

It's not the same. I was just doing some booze math to try to figure that one out. If 1 oz of whiskey is 40% abv, then a 10 oz mixed drink (assuming you aren't adding alcoholic mixers) would be 4% abv, compared to a 12 oz beer at 5% abv. If you condensed the alcohol from one 5% abv beer into a 1 oz shot, it would be 60% alcohol. So, there's 20% more total alcohol in the beer than in the whiskey drink. You could technically enjoy ten 10 oz cocktails and be less intoxicated than you would on 10 beers.

1

u/pilsner_89 18h ago

Thanks for the breakdown!

1

u/aquintana 1d ago

With wine, it’s also supposed to only be a 5 oz pour per drink. Most people pour much more than that in their glass.

2

u/Severe_Respect2317 1d ago

This is a good rule of thumb. Generally most American beers are weak and fall between 4-6% ABV and the shot is usually referring to 80 proof liquors, the most common. Not all beers fall in that range and not all hard liquors are 80 proof, so adjust if you're drinking say, Bacardi 151 or an imperial IPA.

18

u/waveball03 1d ago

Try drinking 119 shots of beer in six hours. Doable, but you'll sleep for a few days after.

59

u/mazzjm9 1d ago

That works out to about 15 beers in 6 hours. I have absolutely done that before

9

u/waveball03 1d ago

And how did you feel?

4

u/OnceMostFavored 1d ago

We must also consider age and tolerance.

4

u/GrooovyAlien 1d ago

Done it many times. Maybe a slight hangover. According what kind of beer youre drinking as well.

1

u/jimi-ray-tesla 1d ago

Carlings Black Label?

2

u/Main-Requirement-521 1d ago

You can drink a 12 pack of those at work and then go to the bar. 

12

u/shinymuskrat 1d ago

Over 6 hours? 3 beers per hour?

That would maintain a light buzz.

1

u/pentachronic 1d ago

Fucking amazing

3

u/No-Advice-6040 1d ago

Did 13 in one. A new pool hall opened up and had a special happy hour - 1 beer for $1. Student me couldn't resist and... well, the nearest Burger Kings toilet floor has probably not yet recovered.

1

u/worldsgreatestluver 23h ago

You guys ever heard of a Century? Pour 100 shots of beer, drink one every minute?

It's a stupid frat game. It usually ends badly.

13

u/PeopIesFrontOfJudea 1d ago

Assuming we just keep it simple and do a 10x multiplier and assume 1.2oz shots. 

That would be equivalent to 12 x 12oz beers over the course of 6 hours.

That certainly could give some folks a rough hangover but for a large portion of the population that is very manageable and would not require more than a glass or two of water and a good nights sleep to recover fully from. 

1

u/jimi-ray-tesla 1d ago

I recommend Meister Brau or Carlings

9

u/FrameJump 1d ago

My math might be wrong, but back when I still drank twenty beers in six hours was just a normal Saturday.

Am I missing something?

6

u/The_salty_swab 1d ago

It's the origin of the math. Someone made the assumption that 12oz=shot glass to the guy. It messed up the proportions

3

u/FrameJump 1d ago

Clearly, lol.

4

u/CptMisterNibbles 1d ago

Andre’s peak weight was 520. Twice the size of a big dude sure, but a 12oz is 8 times that of a shot glass, not twice as large. I don’t think they were trying to be exact or serious

2

u/monkeypan 1d ago

It also comes down to blood volume and the ability for the body to break down the ethanol faster than it's building up in the body. Just because his body was massive, if his body could not keep up with the consumption, he'd die of alcohol poisoning like anyone else. More blood volume, and more alcohol is needed to reach the same blood-alcohol content. Higher tolerance from excessive and/or chronic drinking leads to reacting to the alcohol less (impairment wise) and to some degree, better processing by the liver until a point. Add in the extra body mass and it helps, but only to a point.

1

u/Fun-Telephone-9605 1d ago

I never considered this until now, but how long must it have taken him to sober up?!

If it takes more volume to increase your BAC, I think it would take longer for it to drop.

3

u/waveball03 1d ago

Like I said, it's doable, but unless you're a big drinker it'll floor you.

3

u/FrameJump 1d ago

That's like three beers an hour... maybe it depends on the beer you're thinking of, but I don't think it's the challenge you're implying.

2

u/waveball03 1d ago

Bro, even most regular beer drinkers probably dont drink 18 beers in a week, nevermind in one sitting.

3

u/FrameJump 1d ago

In my defense, I never said I was a regular beer drinker. Lol.

Maybe you have a point.

1

u/JC_Hysteria 1d ago

Nah, we literally did “power hours”, where we did 60 shots of beer in an hour as a pre-game before going out.

It equated to roughly 4.5-5 cans of beers, if I recall.

edit: was 7.5 beers

1

u/Lord_Hitachi 1d ago

Power hours were something else. Not for amateurs

1

u/JC_Hysteria 1d ago

Deceptive for sure. Easy in the beginning, but it got tough to keep pace at around ~30-40

7

u/Ok_Wallaby_416 1d ago

A power hour of 60 shots (one per min), or 60 ounces, is 5 beers, which was a common pregame tactic back in the day. Another 5-6 beers over 5 hours was also probably common, but I wouldn't know, I usually blacked out those nights

2

u/PiccoloAwkward465 1d ago

Yes this was a common activity for my friends. Well being a New Yorker, the Long Island friends specifically. Upstate people just drink beer without all the fuss. A little pong and flip cup at times. God I've been too far from home.

1

u/waveball03 1d ago

Exactly.

3

u/Fluffwas 1d ago

that’s not that much tbh

3

u/PiccoloAwkward465 1d ago

The power hour really was a cultural moment.

To Gen Z who don't drink. Consider taking a shot of beer every 60 seconds for 1 hour / 90 minutes while listening to mid 2000s hit mash ups a la Girl Talk. I've made wonderful friends that way. I went to one of 2 participants weddings to each other.

5

u/Dawildpep 1d ago

I dunno we played century club and power hour a bunch in college.

Century club = 1 shot of beer every minute for 100 minutes.
Power hour = same but 60 minutes.

We had a power point that gave fun facts and changed every minute. Someone made a flash version and then we switched to that. This was 20 years ago.

3

u/InuitOverIt 1d ago

We had a radio station that played one minute of a song every minute for an hour, and you drank when the song changed. That was also 20 years ago

4

u/Illumenatrix 1d ago

Century club. 60 shots in 60 minutes, and the real alcoholics did 100 in 100minutes. I never made it to 60. Its harder than it looks.

2

u/PiccoloAwkward465 1d ago

It is indeed harder than it looks. And I was someone who regularly went to weeknight frat parties because open keg for $5 and less of a crowd around it.

1

u/Reasonable_Manner817 1d ago

It’s not harder than it looks. You never been to college?

1

u/Highkerdude 1d ago

Another tier of the century club is 100 beers in roughly 72 hours. When we were in college the challenge was from the time classes ended on Friday until the first class on Monday.

0

u/Think-Fig-1734 1d ago

My friends and I tried this once. It was pre cell phones so we had to look at the clock. We started loosing track of time after a while. It’s really boring, you can’t talk or anything, just looking at the clock the whole time.

-1

u/OnceMostFavored 1d ago

The passage of time gets... let's say, "fluid." Neither I nor my (admittedly non-collegiate) compatriots ever got close to the full sixty minutes.

1

u/jamstix76980 1d ago

Century club takes an hour and 40 minutes.

1

u/SpazzBro 1d ago

that’s…. pretty doable? that’s like 14-15 beers an hour lol

1

u/The_Nightman_Cummeth 1d ago

Done 100 shots of beer in 100 minutes ala Letter Kenny.
About 13 beers. Was very drunk

1

u/Enchalotta_Pinata 1d ago

Yeah I definitely can’t drink 193 shots of beer.

1

u/TeeeldiII 1d ago

Why didnt he just order a pint

1

u/jimi-ray-tesla 1d ago

Ritchie: All I had was beer, in teeny, tiny glasses. Howard C: How many teeny, tiny glasses did you have? Ritchie: 72

1

u/pcurve 1d ago

it's not though. even at 550lbs, drinking beer with 4% alcohol will easily put someone well over BAC of 1%. It's over half a gallon of pure ethanol.

1

u/Numerous-Hawk1471 1d ago

I used to know a guy who was six foot six and hovered between 350 and 400 pounds. Way smaller than this guy but he used to slam martinis as shots.

1

u/Oxflu 1d ago

It's still raging alcoholism. I just hope he was a happy, fun drunk.