Hobbits live the good life: they eat all day, they generally work with their hands and enjoy nature (unless they are wealthy and don’t work at all), and they live in an idyllic farmscape full of lush trees, rivers, and green hills. They also consume their fair share of ale in taverns, an ode to the pub culture that J.R.R. Tolkien himself heralded from.
But how much can a hobbit actually drink?
There is a joke in the Lord of the Rings films that is not present in the books—while hanging around at The Prancing Pony, Merry comes back to the table with a great big tankard. and Pippin asks what he’s drinking:
“This, my friend, is a pint,” he says wickedly.
Pippin’s eyes widen. “It comes in pints?”
It makes sense that hobbits would veer toward smaller pours because they are smaller people—you wouldn’t give a five-year-old a pint glass of juice because they have smaller stomachs and the glass would be harder to manage in smaller hands. But even if the average hobbit goes from half-pint to half-pint, that doesn’t mean that their rates of consumption are low in the alcohol department.
So how much can they put away when they’re tavern-crawling with pals? It depends on a multitude of interesting factors….
Hobbit measurements. According to Tolkien, hobbits are generally two-to-four feet tall, with the average height being three feet and six inches. This is during the events of LOTR; Tolkien claims that hobbits alive today rarely reach three feet. [The Fellowship of the Ring, “Concerning Hobbits”] Of course, a full-grown hobbit will average more body weight than your typical human child of the same height thanks to a slower metabolism and their famous love of food (“Elevensies” is a thing!), so we can estimate that while a 42-inch-tall child weighs 40.5 pounds on average, a hobbit will clock in at around 70 pounds. Being generally smaller also means having a smaller stomach, but that shouldn’t prove a problem; your average adult stomach can expand greatly to hold multiple liters if needed—that means a hobbit can probably stomach 1.5 liters (more than 3 pints) without much effort. So that means that volume isn’t too much of a concern while drinking.
Type of Beer. LOTR refers to hobbit brew as both “beer” and “ale.” As we observe various species getting drunk off of the ale presented, we can assume that Tolkien is not referring to the small beers of yesteryear, but the average fare one might find in a pub in the 20th century. The majority of hobbit ales can be labeled as session beers, lending themselves to long nights out after a hard day’s work.
Alcohol Content. Ale averages around 3-6% ABV. For the sake of easier math, let’s assume 5% ABV for your typical hobbit ale. Something that’s sessionable, but not so low that your average Man wouldn’t notice the kick, since the hobbits are clearly fine drinking beverages that are brewed with Big Folk in mind, too.
Units of Alcohol. The specific unit for a measure of beer is also important here. It’s probable that a pint in Middle-earth is an Imperial pint, which is different from the American unit. (The Imperial pint is larger.) A full Imperial pint is 568 milliliters, making a half-pint 284 milliliters.
Alcohol Elimination Rate. This is one of the key variant factors in determining how quickly hobbits can process alcohol; contrary to what many people believe, your metabolism has very little to do with how quickly you process alcohol. The biological process that determines that is actually a construct called the Alcohol Elimination Rate, which is basically a calculation that determines how quickly your liver can filter the alcohol in your system.
One of the factors in this calculation is the frequency of how often you drink; a person who drinks regularly will eliminate alcohol faster than someone who only drinks once in a while because they’ve built a chemical “tolerance”. Another factor is the size of your liver compared to your body mass. If a hobbit’s liver size in relation to their body size is similar to that of an adult human, they will eliminate alcohol at relatively the same rate as an adult human. If a hobbit’s liver size is larger than an adult human one (which is true for children) when compared to their body size, than they are more likely to have an alcohol elimination rate closer to an alcoholic or a child. It is entirely possible—perhaps even probable—that hobbits have larger livers, the same way a human child would. Given that hobbits have a relatively constant rate of consumption (six meals a day, when they can get them), their systems are not exactly the same as one scaled for a human.
With that in mind, it’s time to do some math!
Buy the Book
The Ruin of Kings
Blood alcohol content is generally determined by the Widmark formula. While this formula is not absolute, it gives us a helpful baseline. Here is an updated version of the formula:
% BAC = (A x 5.14 / W x r) – .015 x H
Here are the variables that you need to account for:
A = liquid ounces of alcohol consumed
W = a person’s weight in pounds
r = a gender constant of alcohol distribution (.73 for men and .66 for women—this one is tricky on flexibility)
H = hours elapsed since drinking commenced
The .015 in the equation is the average Alcohol Elimination Rate for a social drinker. If hobbits do indeed have a higher Elimination Rate, than that number should be altered to around .028 for the formula to give an accurate BAC%. We determine A by calculating amount of alcohol in the ale consumed, which is the number of liquid ounces in one beverage multiplied by the number of beverages consumed multiplied by the ABV of the beverage. If a hobbit consumes two half-pints of ale, the formula for A looks like this:
9.6 ounces x 2 half-pints x 5% ABV = .96 oz
If we use this formula to account for the BAC of a male hobbit who has had two half-pints of ale over the course of an hour on an empty stomach, with an average human Elimination Rate, this is what we get:
(.96 x 5.14 / 70 x .73) – .015 x 1
(4.934/ 51.1) – .015 x 1
.0965 – .015 x 1 = .082 BAC%
For the record, .08% puts you over the legal limit for driving in the U.S. (Granted, hobbits don’t drive cars. Do they need a license for ponies?) Let’s see what happens when we adjust for the Elimination Rate of someone with a larger liver, closer to the range of a chronic drinker:
.0965 – .028 x 1 = .069 BAC%
If we assume the latter, then a hobbit who puts away a pint in an hour would be in the “buzzed” territory—lowered inhibitions, a bit louder and more boisterous, emotions intensified. If the same hobbit consumed 1.5 pints in the same hour, their BAC would rocket up to .12%, leading to serious motor skill and memory impairment as well as poor self-control. Two whole pints in an hour would lead to a BAC of .17%, making this same hobbit start to feel dizzy or nauseous, with blurred vision and a possible risk of blackout. By three pints and a BAC of .26%, the poor guy is probably throwing up near some poor farmer’s stables and leaning on his pals for support because he cannot walk without assistance.
So, if a hobbit consumes a steady half-pint an hour, they’d maintain a vague euphoria. But if they plan on consuming at a more rapid rate, they have to watch themselves (or have some good pals looking out for them). Which means that hobbits process alcohol similarly to humans, just in smaller portion sizes. And they likely have awesome livers getting the work done for them.
Just some useful info for when the hobbits drop by your house, and you want to make sure they enjoy your holiday party.
This article was originally published in October 2016.
Emmet Asher-Perrin tried hobbit beer in New Zealand. It was delicious. You can bug her on Twitter and Tumblr, and read more of her work here and elsewhere.
“Do they need a license for ponies?)”
A guy I knew several years ago got a dui on horseback.
@1. wiredog Seems to me that if the horse was sober, he should have been good to go :D
@1 ponies, unlike cars, have a sense of self-preservation. Getting a DUI on horseback probably involved somebody being a jackass (we should retire this term: Equus africanus asinus, is a perfectly sensible animal, not a lout ;))
As an aside to Ms Asher-Perrin, I suspect that given their small size and love of food, a lower metabolic rate would make hobbits immobile spheroids, so they probably have a greater metabolic rate. If British North America is any guide, one would expect the hobbits to have much higher per kilogram body mass alcohol consumption that would be expected today. Eighteenth Century consumption in part of what became the US was about 15 gallons of cider and 3.5 gallons of distilled spirits per person per year (Clark), which works out to about a shot of neat whiskey or rum and a half-pint of cider per day for every man, woman, and child. By standards of that time, it was considered high. Since hobbits probably weigh about a 30% of an adult human, maybe a third of that per person per year is reasonable.
sources
https://journals.psu.edu/pmhb/article/viewFile/44495/44216
Clark, Peter “Every Home a Distillery: Alcohol, Gender and Technology in the Colonial Chesapeake (review) “, https://muse.jhu.edu/article/450164/pdf
Hobbits canonically <I>do</I> drink pints, and in circumstances that suggest leisurely enjoyment of a quiet beer, rather than trying to get wasted, for instance, this ref in the last chapter:
“The Northfarthing barley was so fine that the beer of 1420 malt was long remembered and became a byword. Indeed a generation later one might hear an old gaffer in an inn after a good pint of well-earned ale put down his mug with a sigh:’Ah! That was proper 1420, that was!’ “
It’s unfortunate that we don’t get a measure for the ‘large mugs’ that Mrs Maggot pours beer into when Farmer Maggot takes Frodo and company in, but I suspect they were probably pint mugs – and in any case, they have beer when they arrive, and more beer at supper, and don’t appear to be buzzed in the slightest.
So I think @3 Swampyankee is bang on the money – hobbits metabolise alcohol faster than humans.
But how much alcohol does it take to get an *orc* drunk?
This is officially my favourite article ever
In the movies, at least, Hobbit metabolic rates are definitely high. Consider how much Elven waybread Merry and Pippin are able to eat…
I think of session beers as under 4% ABV, call it 3.5%.
I feel like Tolkien simply gave the working male hobbits of the Shire* the capacity of North Western European men with working-class drinking habits, and it’s up to us to postulate the metabolism that would give them such a capacity.
*and privileged young male hobbits not yet settled down, the equivalent of Oxford students
@9 del,
It’s not unlikely that there was a bit of classism there. The “lower classes” have always been caricatured as lazy, stupid, drunken, or drug-addicted.
Just like today.
I can give an hour’s talk on how Tolkien was more viciously, meanly class prejudiced than most tor.com readers notice, but on drink he wasn’t out of order. As a working class English man of the twentieth century, his depiction of the drinking of hobbits fits perfectly with my experience of family, community, and the workplace.
It’s more Jackson who makes mock of it, because he doesn’t understand. “It comes in pints!” babbles Billy Boyd, but Merry and Pippin aren’t high school students under twenty one in a prohibitionist society, they’re experienced adults with years of pub culture under their belt, in the British and Irish way. They’d have more chill than that.
It’s a pity Jackson depicts bars as a noisy riot of Dionysian excess, and included no quieter scenes such as the canonical one in the Green Dragon (that would also establish Sam as a working adult and not a college age boy). Oh well, just another opportunity for a future producer to make a version as grounded in the text as Jackson’s, while being surprisingly different.
‘”Elevensies” is a thing!’
Erm, of course it is. Or rather, “elevenses” is a thing. Second breakfast I’ll grant is both a tad gluttonous and a bit of a contradiction in terms, but I fail to see how Hobbits having elevenses has anything to do with a ‘famous love of food’. A world without elevenses is a world without meaning; it’s not like it’s some random thing that Tolkien invented.
Don’t Go Drinking With Hobbits” lyrics and music by Marc Gunn, March 11, 2007
Performed by Marc Gunn
From CD: Don’t Go Drinking With Hobbits and What Color Is Your Dragon?
Sure, you’ll [F]have a grand time all night [C]long.
But [F]if you go drinking with [C]hobbits, my [A7]friends
You [D7]may not want to [G7]wake up at [C]all.
They were thoughtful and kind when they invited me to drink,
A lone human among hobbitkind.
They bought me a half, then another and one more
And told stories of days long gone by.
The brew was strong. My glass never empty,
As if time stood still and bare.
But when I awoke the next morning
I felt like Old Smaug had been there.
You may wonder how it all happened.
Well, I’m still wondering what happened too.
I had tea, dinner, and supper.
Quite full, I thought I was through.
But they insisted I come to the Flagon
And drink to the health of new friends.
But when I go there, I met more hobbit friends
And the toasts seemed never to end.
When the sun it rose the next morning,
And I lifted my head from my drool,
There were beer mugs spilled on the tables
And hobbits lying next to their stools.
A young hobbit lass grinned cross the barroom
And nudged each of my new hobbit friends.
Then sometime after second breakfast
We all started drinking again.
I left Hobbiton a few days later.
My head it was swollen and sore.
It felt like a dwarven anvil
After a terrible war.
I don’t think I’ll ever recover
From the food, the drink, and the cheer.
And I swear I’ll never drink with hobbits again
At least, not till I see them next year.
I always imagined them drinking from little glasses like they serve you in McSorley’s in New York. A pint-sized pint, you might say.
@12: “Elevenses” comes across as amusingly excessive to people who are used to having lunch around noon, as it suggests you’re having two meals within the space of two hours. Maybe elevenses is the hobbit version of lunch?
@15: Elevenses is real! It’s a morning (or afternoon) snack (or full meal) eaten in many cultures. For hobbits, specifically, it falls between second breakfast and lunch, and if it hadn’t already existed, they would have been obliged to invent it. Just like they had to invent second breakfast.
I live with Brits. They have elevenses around 10:30 and then they eat lunch around 1:30.
@6
Orcs produce alcohol from their gut bacteria. They don’t need to drink
Second breakfast I’ll grant is both a tad gluttonous and a bit of a contradiction in terms
I’ve found it fits quite well into a home-working routine. You get up early (say 6 am) and have first breakfast – coffee and maybe a roll. You start work at 7 and do all the first-thing-in-the-morning stuff; snake classification, answering emails, whatever. Then after about an hour of that you stop work and make yourself a proper breakfast – eggs and ham. That keeps you going till lunch at 1 (with ‘elevenses’ perhaps another cup of coffee and a biscuit).
Snake classification. My whole job is snake classification……
“Elevenses” comes across as amusingly excessive to people who are used to having lunch around noon, as it suggests you’re having two meals within the space of two hours.
And yet American coffee shops are not empty in the middle of the morning, and many of the inhabitants appear to the observant eye to be eating…
Oh, we are Bagginses and we’re okay
We drink all night and we drink all day!
(have a familiar Ring to it?)
There was no specific blood alcohol limit for driving in the UK at the time of publication of The Hobbit, but for most of a century it had been illegal to be drunk in charge of a horse or any mechanically propelled vehicle. Drunkenness would be assessed by observation – slurred speech, inability to walk a straight line etc. One may safely assume that an experienced drinker, whether Hobbit or Man, would be able to ride home unimpeded with two or more times the blood alcohol concentration permitted in most jurisdictions currently.
I have a feeling that Second Breakfast is the hallmark of farm life.
My mother tells of staying with her friend on their farm in Morayshire when everyone used to get up early to deal with the animals: they would have one breakfast first (I seem to recall this was usually porridge to brace them against the Scottish morning ;-) and then a couple of hours later when they returned they would have a second (the traditional fry-up much beloved of the British ;-) no doubt followed in due course—after more hard work—by elevenses.
I have no direct evidence that this practice continues but it would surprise me if it did not.
@23
I knew a guy a couple of decades ago who got arrested a couple decades previous to that for DUI while riding a horse.
The real question of import is what the equivalent of “slightly less than two drinks” would be for a proper hobbit. If you can determine that, then you can orchestrate the closest thing to utopia amongst hobbit-kind.