Enter what you drank and when you stopped. Get an honest estimate of when you're safe to drive. The answer is probably later than you think.
Dave's take: I used to do the "I feel fine" test on Saturday mornings. Turns out feeling fine and being under the limit are completely different things. After 4 pints on a Friday, you're probably not legal until lunchtime Saturday. Nobody tells you that.
Since switching to AF beer for weeknights (and most weekends honestly), the morning driving thing just... stopped being a problem. Sounds obvious when you say it out loud. I've been drinking IMPOSSIBREW mostly - their IPA actually tastes like something, and the L-theanine means Tuesday evenings still feel like a proper wind-down. Referral link if you want a tenner off.
As a rough guide, it takes about 1 hour per unit of alcohol for your body to process it. A pint of 4.5% lager is about 2.5 units, so 3 pints would take roughly 7-8 hours to clear. But this varies hugely depending on your weight, sex, metabolism, and whether you've eaten. The only guaranteed safe option is to not drink at all before driving.
This is where most people get caught out. After a heavy night (6+ pints or equivalent), you could still be over the limit at lunchtime the next day. The NHS says alcohol takes about 1 hour per unit to leave your system, and there's nothing you can do to speed it up - coffee, cold showers, food, and sleep don't help your body process alcohol any faster.
In England, Wales, and Northern Ireland the legal limit is 80 milligrams of alcohol per 100ml of blood (0.08 BAC). In Scotland, the limit is lower at 50mg per 100ml (0.05 BAC). There is no reliable way to know your exact blood alcohol level without a proper test, which is why the safest approach is to not drink at all if you plan to drive.
No. Alcohol-free beers (0.0% to 0.5% ABV) contain such tiny amounts of alcohol that they won't register on a breathalyser or affect your ability to drive. For context, a ripe banana contains roughly the same amount of alcohol as a 0.5% AF beer. You'd need to drink dozens in quick succession to register anything - and at that point you'd have bigger problems than a breathalyser.
A pint (568ml) of standard lager at 4.5% is about 2.5 units. A pint of stronger lager (5.2%) is closer to 3 units. A pint of session ale (3.8%) is about 2.2 units. The formula is: volume in ml x ABV% / 1000 = units. The NHS recommends no more than 14 units per week spread across 3 or more days.
No. Nothing speeds up alcohol processing - not coffee, not water, not food, not exercise, not sleep, not cold showers. Your liver processes alcohol at a fixed rate of roughly one unit per hour, and there's no way to change that. The myths persist because coffee makes you feel more awake (but still drunk), and food before drinking slows absorption (but once it's absorbed, you're on the same clock).
Your Drinking Week Report Card - get graded on your weekly drinking habits
Hangover Cost Calculator - what hangovers actually cost you per year
Parkrun Alcohol Calculator - how much drinking slows your 5K