There seems to be a lot of enthusiasm by governments to tell you where and when you can and can’t drink a beer.

Here is a run down of the laws I have found, but remember though that at times it is how old you act rather than how old you are.

United Kingdom

(Not Scotland)

You would assume that being a small island Britain would have simple laws regulating the sale of alcoholic beverages. If so think again. Britains beer laws are generally thought to be archaic, old and out of date.

The main contention amongst drinkers seems to be that of opening hours. You can only buy alcohol between certain times of the day. Back during World War II the government were worried about the workers not turning up to make bombs because they were hungover or worse, turning up drunk. So they brought in opening hours. Landlords were only able to open their establishments from 11am, after the workers were hard at work, until 2 pm, just after lunch. Then they could reopen at 5pm, just before the factories closed but had to shut at 11pm, so everyone could go home and get a good nights sleep and be bright eyed for work in the morning. This was from Monday to Saturday but people didn’t work on Sundays so the laws were different, they had to shut at 10:30pm. Nobody said it made sense but they were only temporary laws while the war was on to stop people blowing the town up. After the war however the government were too busy being nice neighbours and rebuilding a country so they seemed to forget about taking the laws off the books. In this more enlightened twenty four hour a day society of ours the law makers realised that the beer laws needed changing, so they sat down, had a think and came up with all day opening. Now publicans could (if they wished) open their doors at 11am (after people had gone to work) and stay open until 11pm (so the workers could sleep off their inebriation). The pressure of the church meant that they still had to shut on Sunday afternoons though. It was said at the time that not everybody worked nine to five and that these changes didn’t really change anything. After a while of people lobbying and complaining to the government they changed the laws again, and brought in all day opening on Sundays.

What of the people who didn’t have to work, could they drink all day? Yes they could, as long as they were rich enough to be able to join a private members club. These had a whole set of rules of their own, including their own opening hours. But the common peasantry did find a loophole amongst the red tape. Market Licensing. Whilst the war was on markets weren’t really in full swing, so the officials missed an old law stating that if a public house was within a certain distance from a place given over solely to market trade then it had to open to offer refreshments for the market traders who may have travelled for many hours to get to market. Seeing as they missed it, they forgot to repeal it so it stills stands. A pub next to a market can open at 5.30am for market traders.

Not everyone can drink beer though, there is a minimum age limit as to when you can start drinking, but even that isn’t simple.

If you are in a restaurant you can have a glass with a meal at the age of fourteen.

At sixteen you can drink shandy in pubs.

At eighteen you can really start however by being served yourself.

Pressure groups say that there is a big problem with underage drinking in England, what they fail to mention is that it isn’t in the pubs that the problem exists but rather in Off Licenses where the sales staff have no come back for the actions of their customers. Pub licensees do however. In early 1998 a pub regular brought his son in for a birthday drink, the son then decided to match his fathers drinking. Naturally he couldn’t and started to look a bit ill. The staff propped him up on a seat in the corner and he promptly fell asleep. A while later when the father decided to go home, he tried to wake his son up and couldn’t. He had died of alcohol poisoning. A tragic story and a senseless waste of a young life. What was even more senseless though was that the family of the boy took the staff of the pub to court for manslaughter. Their argument was that the staff served the drinks and were therefore responsible for the boys death. The staff argued that the father kept ordering the drinks for his son and he should have stopped his own son drinking. The family won the case. Any member of bar staff in England is responsible for a customer in their pub. It is actually illegal to serve beer or indeed any alcohol to someone that you think might be drunk.

The last main law relating to beer in Britain is what it’s served in. All glasses in a pub have to be government stamped. This means that they have a little etching on the side saying that they do actually hold the amount they say they do. This is to make sure that you do not get a short measure in a pub in Britain. It doesn’t work as a lot of beer is served with a frothy head of about a centimetre, that’s a good slurp of beer.

United Kingdom

Scotland

Scotland is a little more relaxed than the rest of Britain and has a slightly laid back view of the restrictions on drinking. Some pubs in Glasgow for instance can remain open to 1am. The anti drinking groups didn’t like this idea but the police did, and there were more police and drinkers than there were anti drinkers. Scotland is reputed however to have one of the highest concentrations of alcoholics anywhere. But since the introduction of more liberal opening hours the amount of alcohol related crime has reduced dramatically. The age limits in Scotland are still the same as the rest of Britain, but landlords are more likely to turn a blind eye to age. Their view seems to be, if you act old enough you are old enough. They have also been known to refuse to serve people legally old enough to drink on the grounds that they don’t act responsibly enough.

Ireland

There are a LOT of pubs in Ireland. SO many in fact, that there are no more pub licences available and there hasn't been for quite some time now. But, of course, there are loopholes:

1. Buy another pub and renovate it or close it down and free up a licence so that you can build one somewhere else.
2. Build a hotel. A hotel, by definition, has a bar in it and so you can just open it to the public if they want to go into it for a drink.

In Ireland you have to be 18 to drink legally. So officially one should not be allowed near it until after that. If you have a beard and are tall (male) or are very cute and flirty (female) most bouncers won't notice you or won't card you. Because of this, most pubs are now over 21's or over 23's only so that they can legally turn you away if they suspect that you are underage and just have a fake ID.

To be in a pub in the first place, you have to be 16 (unless accompanied by your parents) and 18 to stay there after 8-9pm. But most pubs won't care if there are kids there with their parents all night (in fact it is part of life in most rural areas).

To work in a licensed premises, you have to be 16 for lounge work and 18 for bar work. But (again, in the typical Irish way) these laws are usually relaxed quite a lot if it suits people...

Opening Hours:

Pubs can legally serve until 11.30pm (it used to be 11pm during the winter, but that was changed in the last couple of years) with a drinking up time of 1/2 hour.

At weekends (or on special occasions) they can apply for a late licence to serve until 1.30am with drinking up of 1/2 hour again. But, in order to have a late licence, you must fulfil a few legal criteria. The pub must serve a meal, have music (live or dj) or be part of a hotel.

Of course, in rural areas, it is not uncommon for pubs to stay open until
4 or 5 in the morning, or possibly all night until the owner wants to get
some rest. But in cities, the opening hours are usually strictly
followed.

Australia

The legal drinking age in Australia is 18.

Guess they figure if you're old enough to vote your old enough to drown your sorrows at the result

United States

Due to the way the law works in the United States, those related to beer and indeed other alcohol vary from state to state. The general rule of thumb is that if you are 21 you can buy beer. You are able to buy a gun at 18 and drive at 15 but no beer until you reach 21 and are then considered mature enough.

Getting hold of the stuff is a different matter altogether. The act of purchasing beer seems to be surrounded by so many unusual, and at first glance strange, laws that people will probably give up and have a cup of coffee.

It is not just the age limit, there are laws that affect almost every aspect of buying beer. In some states such as Newfoundland and New Brunswick you can’t buy beer to take home in quantities less than a six pack. In a lot of southern states beer bottles can only be in sizes of 8, 12, 16, or 32oz. This restriction can really mess up imports of bottles from countries where it is still measured in imperial pints (England). Another law that may confuse tourists was found in Vermont where you cannot have two glasses of beer in front of you at the same time. Not really a problem you might think but the beer is served so cold that you might want your second glass warming up slightly while you drink your first. Most bar staff are very obliging and will pour the second drink and let it sit for a while before selling it to you. But does that really need to be a law? Who are we to say.

Holland

This is a country that is known for it liberal laws. Great, laid back and sensible.

Not simple though. You can buy beer here from the age of 16. But you can’t touch spirits until you are 18. They seem to want to break you in easy here which makes you ask the question “Why do they legalise sex at 14 then?”