Foreigners Reveal What Shocked Them Most About British Drinking Culture

There’s nothing like getting absolutely steaming for literally no reason at all. This attitude is one that many Brits adopt before they’re even of legal drinking age, so for those who didn’t grow up here – people who only know “Spoons” as a piece of metal used to eat soup – British drinking might take some getting used to.

I spoke to some current and former international students to find out what they thought of the booze culture they encountered after moving to the UK.

It was weird to me at first, because any societies or activities that I went to always involved a pub crawl. I understand staying in a pub and drinking for a couple of hours, but sometimes they stayed for a couple of minutes and moved to the next stop, and I don’t get why that is the only social activity societies do.

In China, you don’t really go out to drink a lot; you go out with your friends and find a very quiet bar and talk, which is definitely different from the drinking culture in the UK, where a lot of people drink together. I don’t feel like I fit in, because if you don’t do what the other people are doing, you’re an outsider. I can’t fit in, because I don’t get the point of it. I feel like I've never got completely used to it.

When people discover that you’re not so into drinking, they'll see you as someone who is not worth communicating with – they’ll talk less with you, interact less with you, because they think you're not that interesting. I feel like people really think the more you drink, the more interesting you are.

I come from a big drinking country, I've always been very used to seeing alcohol around me and consuming alcohol on a regular basis, but then I moved to the UK and the approach is so different.

What shocked me was alcohol is seen almost as a bad thing. I was used to having dinner with a glass of wine, or a beer, but with no expectation that you get drunk every time you drink, which is what shocked me about the drinking culture in the UK. There's no in between. I've never seen the point of going on a night out and spending money to then not remember anything. To me, having a blackout has always been a bad thing. I don't think it's seen as such a bad thing here.

The idea of people having a drink for lunch, or even before lunch, was a bit of a shock for me, because traditionally alcoholic drinks are something that, at least in Southeast Asia, people usually have in the evening. You get judged quite a lot on how you appear to members of the public, how you dress, how you behave, so the fact that, here, people are having a morning cocktail, or drinking before going home in the evenings, made it so much more casual. I like the fact that no one really questions you. You could be drinking at lunch and no one would bat an eyelid, whereas, back in Asia, if you did that you're going to get loads of stares and people asking you if you’re OK.

Drinking and the whole pub culture is an integral part of British society. From my perspective, if you want to drink, you just go into a store and grab one – you don't have to physically sit in a place and do it. Only after I arrived in the UK, I realised that the whole drinking culture was very centralised around this rather grimy looking place called a “pub”. After work, instead of going to go grab a coffee or tea, it's always grab a drink, so it's become such a casual question that no one really has a second thought. It does seem, though, as much as drinking is a very integral part of British culture, there is also a growing awareness to what addictions are arising from this drinking culture.

It was a pleasant surprise that people were so comfortable with drinking, which I did not find back at home, so that was the major shock that I got – in a good way, because I feel they're freer here. I embraced the culture, really, and I think people's attitude towards it is so relaxed. I took my guard down a bit, so I started drinking more frequently.

Universities endorsed drinking, in terms of the events. There were non-drinking events that you could bond at, but there's more of a social pressure to drink and make friends with people in that way because it seemed the most fun way to do it. I thought I fit in quite well with it, but when I went to sports nights and saw people take it way too far – unnecessarily far – then I felt it was not drinking to feel a buzz, it was drinking to drink, and I felt a bit out of place.

When I first came here, I thought it was weird going out to the pub to have one or two beers. You don't do that in Norway, it’s too expensive. A pint in Norway can cost £10. It was exciting to drink more cheaply here.

It’s more social than in Norway, because you go out after a working day and meet up with your friends for one or two beers, then go home. That's something I missed back in Norway, because when I'm here I go out to the pub with a few of my colleagues, but in Norway it’s too expensive. I also remember, in one of my first months here, me and one of my Norwegian friends were going for lunch at 12 o'clock and we saw people drinking wine and beer for lunch, and we were shocked because you'd never do that in Norway. After seven years, I have started adapting to it; having a drink at lunch doesn't feel uncomfortable for me now. 

I wasn't really surprised about how much they drink here, it was more about the time everyone started. In France, we don't really go out before 8PM, and sometimes here, it’s four or five. It changed the way I drink, in that I drink more socially, more for the atmosphere, rather than just trying to get drunk. I was younger as well, so maybe it's a combination, but when I came here I started to go for just two or three pints, nothing mad. 

Wherever you go, if you’re British, you can drink, but I think English people expect that, if you’re European, wherever you’re from, you can’t really drink like them. English people are proud of being able to drink that much and go long hours drinking. The randomness of drinking as well – if it’s sunny outside on a Tuesday afternoon, it’s, “Fine, let's go for a pint.”

One of the things that surprised me was the level of aggression that’s tolerated – the amount of people that actively look to fight, and when that happens, how it’s widely accepted by people. Some lads get into a fight, shake hands and walk off.

Also, Jägerbombs. That was something very new to me, because in Germany you just drink Jäger straight. I think I had like five or six [Jägerbombs] at one event in freshers week and I genuinely did not get a wink of sleep, and had palpitations the next morning. That was a bit of a surprise to me, but the beer was nothing new. The pint culture, though – people just drink pints on pints on pints, whereas in Germany it’s more by the bottle. I have this one friend who has record of doing 18 pints of Guinness.