The Official Guidance

The UK Chief Medical Officers' guidelines, updated in 2016 and unchanged since, are unambiguous: there is no safe level of alcohol consumption. None. The recommended limit is no more than 14 units per week — roughly six pints of average-strength beer — spread over three or more days, with several drink-free days each week.

That's not 14 units as a target. It's 14 units as a ceiling — the point above which the risks become unacceptably high. Below that, the risks are lower but they don't disappear. The guidance explicitly states that the previous notion of a "safe" amount was wrong. Any amount of alcohol carries some health risk. The 14-unit guideline is the level at which the risk of dying from an alcohol-related condition is roughly equivalent to other everyday risks that most people accept without thinking about — like driving a car.

If you're drinking more than 14 units a week — and if you're honest, most people in the beer industry are — you are above what the Chief Medical Officers consider an acceptable risk level. That's worth sitting with for a moment.