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08-03-2024, 06:10
Visit the Boak and Bailey's Beer Blog site (https://boakandbailey.com/2024/03/the-lesser-spotted-underage-drinker-in-2024/)
When did you last see underage drinkers even try to get served in a pub? It’s what you might call a dying tradition.
Ray’s dad says he started drinking in a pub on the Somerset Levels when he was 12, surrounded by adults who made sure he and his brothers (mostly) behaved themselves.
And in the mid-1990s, Jess went to East London pubs from 16 hiding behind her tall friend, though nobody ever got asked for ID.
She’d sit in the darkest corner of the back room with all the other juvenile boozers, tolerated by management on the understanding that they behaved.*
(Teenage Jess’s drinks of choice, in case you were wondering: snakebite and black, or Newcastle Brown Ale.)
It sounds sort of cute and nostalgic but there are good reasons why you might not want actual children to drink. Pubs have quite rightly been put under pressure to apply the law, check for ID, and refuse service if they’re in doubt.
Still, the other day, we saw what looked to us like a group of adolescents getting served in a pub without too much trouble.
We say “what looked to us like” because we’ve reached a point where people under, say, 25 all look about the same age to us. What we think is a schoolboy turns out to be a bloke on his way to the office or, worse, a teacher. That kind of thing.
Anyway, these lads definitely looked young, and the bar staff thought so too, because they asked for ID. One of them produced a document which, even from a distance, looked unconvincing. After a bit of conversation, the person behind the bar was convinced, or gave up, and agreed they could have their drinks.
They ordered, nervously, three pints of lager, without specifying which one.
As they made their way to a table they all but gave each other fist bumps. Their conspiratorial manner and excitement were obvious.
“Alright lads, play it cool, play it cool,” said Jess.
At which point, they took out their phones and started recording videos of themselves with their beers, pouting and posing for, we suppose, Tik-Tok or something similar.
The middle-aged group on the table next to them asked, amused, what they were up to. The phones went away and some polite, good-natured conversation ensued.
There’s no astonishing twist to this story. The lads drank their pints, slowly and a bit weirdly, as if they’d never held a glass before, or tasted beer. They made quiet conversation. And after a while, they left, with a round of shy waves and goodbyes to their neighbours and the pub staff.
Legally, they probably shouldn’t have been served – one ID, even if it is legit, doesn’t cover three people. But it was hard to find the whole business anything less than rather sweet.
And we need them to develop the pub habit, don’t we, if we want these places to exist at all in 20 years time?
Back in the 1990s and 00s there were conversations about lowering the legal age for drinking in pubs so that this could be a safe, supervised activity. It was tied into various moral panics over kids ‘hanging around’ on the streets, alcopops, and lager loutism (https://boakandbailey.com/2017/08/panic-on-the-streets-of-woking-rise-of-the-lager-lout/).
Which politician would bother arguing for that now?
There are some additional thoughts on youthful drinking habits and the avocado toast paradox (https://www.patreon.com/posts/99968573) for subscribers to our Patreon.
The lesser-spotted underage drinker in 2024 (https://boakandbailey.com/2024/03/the-lesser-spotted-underage-drinker-in-2024/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (https://boakandbailey.com)
More... (https://boakandbailey.com/2024/03/the-lesser-spotted-underage-drinker-in-2024/)
When did you last see underage drinkers even try to get served in a pub? It’s what you might call a dying tradition.
Ray’s dad says he started drinking in a pub on the Somerset Levels when he was 12, surrounded by adults who made sure he and his brothers (mostly) behaved themselves.
And in the mid-1990s, Jess went to East London pubs from 16 hiding behind her tall friend, though nobody ever got asked for ID.
She’d sit in the darkest corner of the back room with all the other juvenile boozers, tolerated by management on the understanding that they behaved.*
(Teenage Jess’s drinks of choice, in case you were wondering: snakebite and black, or Newcastle Brown Ale.)
It sounds sort of cute and nostalgic but there are good reasons why you might not want actual children to drink. Pubs have quite rightly been put under pressure to apply the law, check for ID, and refuse service if they’re in doubt.
Still, the other day, we saw what looked to us like a group of adolescents getting served in a pub without too much trouble.
We say “what looked to us like” because we’ve reached a point where people under, say, 25 all look about the same age to us. What we think is a schoolboy turns out to be a bloke on his way to the office or, worse, a teacher. That kind of thing.
Anyway, these lads definitely looked young, and the bar staff thought so too, because they asked for ID. One of them produced a document which, even from a distance, looked unconvincing. After a bit of conversation, the person behind the bar was convinced, or gave up, and agreed they could have their drinks.
They ordered, nervously, three pints of lager, without specifying which one.
As they made their way to a table they all but gave each other fist bumps. Their conspiratorial manner and excitement were obvious.
“Alright lads, play it cool, play it cool,” said Jess.
At which point, they took out their phones and started recording videos of themselves with their beers, pouting and posing for, we suppose, Tik-Tok or something similar.
The middle-aged group on the table next to them asked, amused, what they were up to. The phones went away and some polite, good-natured conversation ensued.
There’s no astonishing twist to this story. The lads drank their pints, slowly and a bit weirdly, as if they’d never held a glass before, or tasted beer. They made quiet conversation. And after a while, they left, with a round of shy waves and goodbyes to their neighbours and the pub staff.
Legally, they probably shouldn’t have been served – one ID, even if it is legit, doesn’t cover three people. But it was hard to find the whole business anything less than rather sweet.
And we need them to develop the pub habit, don’t we, if we want these places to exist at all in 20 years time?
Back in the 1990s and 00s there were conversations about lowering the legal age for drinking in pubs so that this could be a safe, supervised activity. It was tied into various moral panics over kids ‘hanging around’ on the streets, alcopops, and lager loutism (https://boakandbailey.com/2017/08/panic-on-the-streets-of-woking-rise-of-the-lager-lout/).
Which politician would bother arguing for that now?
There are some additional thoughts on youthful drinking habits and the avocado toast paradox (https://www.patreon.com/posts/99968573) for subscribers to our Patreon.
The lesser-spotted underage drinker in 2024 (https://boakandbailey.com/2024/03/the-lesser-spotted-underage-drinker-in-2024/) originally posted at Boak & Bailey's Beer Blog (https://boakandbailey.com)
More... (https://boakandbailey.com/2024/03/the-lesser-spotted-underage-drinker-in-2024/)