When it comes to downing a brew, drinking from a curvy glass could get you drunk quicker. A new study shows that people drink beer almost twice as fast when they use curved glasses.

The researchers, from the University of Bristol in the UK, studied 160 social drinkers between 18 and 40 as they drank soda and beer from curvy and straight glasses. They saw that those who drank beer from curvy glasses drank about twice as fast as those who drank it from straight glasses. Interestingly, they didn't see this difference in the soda drinkers.

Both sets of soda drinkers and the beer drinkers sipping from curvy glasses finished their drinks in almost 7 minutes, while beer drinkers drinking from a straight glass took over 11 minutes to finish their brew.

The researchers say this could be because people can't judge "halfway" as easily in a curvy glass as they can in a straight edge glass. They tested this and found that it was true: People had more difficulty determining if a glass was half-full when it was curvy.

Straight-sided (A) and curved (B) glasses used in the study. PLoS ONE

They also saw that the drinkers who were wrong the most when guessing how full a glass was were also the fastest drinkers. The researchers think that the beer drinkers tried to "pace" their drinking, but couldn't do it as well with the curvy glasses. The study was published in the journal PLoS ONE.

"Due to the personal and societal harms associated with heavy bouts of drinking, there has been a lot of recent interest in alcohol control strategies," study researcher Angela Attwood said in a statement from the university.

"People often talk of 'pacing themselves' when drinking alcohol as a means of controlling levels of drunkenness, and I think the important point to take from our research is that the ability to pace effectively may be compromised when drinking from certain types of glasses."

They only looked at one drink, so they can't draw any conclusions about how glass shape would impact a multiple-beer drinking session.