Wine after beer gives pleasure: That is complete nonsense

It all sounds so wise: ‘beer after wine, gives venom’ and ‘wine after beer, gives pleasure.’ Your hangover would be much less if you adhered to this wisdom. And that wisdom has been around in our country for a long time. In the past, beer was mainly consumed by the poorer population, wine was for the wealthy. In that sense, this slogan was meant more figuratively: if you drink wine after beer, it means you have become more prosperous. Nice then. We took it literally and made it ourselves that the hangovers are less. I certainly haven't become richer from it, after all those drink orders.

At the beginning of my drinking career I did adhere to this at times, but I already came to the conclusion that this slogan actually makes no sense at all. I have always had that hangover. But yes, that is the conclusion of one drinker. Fortunately, the BBC took matters into their own hands last February to properly investigate this slogan.

They did this with ninety volunteers (I unfortunately did not receive an invitation), ranging from 19 to 40 years old. They were first served the same meal (just laying that foundation, logically) and were then split into three groups. The first group drank two and a half pints of beer and then four full glasses of white wine. The second group had the same drinks, but in the opposite order. The third group had only beer or only wine, which amounted to the same quantity as the other two groups. Well, I must say: those are not small amounts. That was quite a heavy Friday afternoon drink at the lab.

After the mega-drink, they all had to drink a glass of water and then answer questions about their physical condition the next day. Spoiler: it was not good. But the research was not over yet. The following week, they had to do the whole routine again, with the groups switched. And yes, then came the relieving word: it doesn't matter at all in which order you drink it. One in ten volunteers had to vomit during the experiment. One hundred percent of the volunteers felt extremely unwell. Raise your hand if you are genuinely surprised by this result.

So how to prevent that hangover? According to a German professor (and those Germans can drink quite a bit, so they must know), the main announcement of a hangover 2.0 is when you really feel very drunk. Uh, yes. No shit, Sherlock. I have the feeling that the ultimate remedy against a hangover has not yet been fully discovered. We now know that you can also feel hungover even if you haven't drunk and also that you can't die from a hangover. Dear BBC, can you please find out how to completely avoid that hangover in your next research? Because this also doesn't seem to be the solution.