"Grape or grain, but never the twain." So runs the old folk wisdom that advises against drinking wine or beer on the same night. It is far from uncommon to hear people who have woken up feeling sick, dehydrated and with a splitting headache blaming their hangovers on having unwisely mixed their drinks.

Then there are the theories about the order in which to consume different tipples. One version suggests: “Wine before beer and you’ll feel queer. Beer before wine and you’ll feel fine.” Or is it the other way round? After a couple of drinks it’s not always easy to remember. All of which begs the question of how reliable these sayings are. Is there any evidence beyond the anecdotal that drinking wine followed by beer or vice versa makes hangovers worse?

A review of previous research published in 2000 confirms that the causes of the main symptoms of hangovers are dehydration, changes in the levels of hormones such as aldosterone and cortisol, and the toxic effects of alcohol itself. In addition there’s evidence that the immune system is disrupted and that this could be the cause of the headache, the nausea and the fatigue.



The first of the two main ingredients of a drink that affect the severity of a hangover is obvious. The higher the alcohol content, and the faster you drink it, the worse the hangover. This is however just an average. The same quantity of alcohol does not always result in the same severity of hangover. Many report that they don’t get hangovers and no one quite knows why. In a study of young Danes on holiday, almost a third of those who consumed at least 12 units of alcohol (roughly equivalent to four pints of lager or four 250ml glasses of wine) avoided hangovers.