It’s the first Friday of July and that means it’s time for another round of The Session! This month’s group blogging fun is brought to us from Booze, Beats & Bites, where Nathaniel has given us the topic of “Drinking Alone“:

I love going to the pub with mates but sometimes I go to a pub alone and I enjoy it.

Other people say I’m weird for this as there seems to be a stigma attached to being in the pub alone – alcoholism.

The way I see it is that I love beer and pubs and I don’t see why I should only go to the pub when I’m with other people.

Am I weird for going to the pub alone?

How do you feel about going to the pub alone? Do you feel it’s necessary to be around friends to spend time in a pub?

Honestly, I’m not much of a loner pub-goer. On occasion I will find myself solo at a brewery tasting event or similar, but this being a small town—and this being the beer community in general—I almost always run into someone I know and strike up a conversation: friends, brewers pouring beers, and the like. If I really feel like drinking “alone”—as in, not socially as I generally would going out—I have plenty of beer at home to drink. (And even then I’m not really “alone”—just around people who don’t drink beer.)

Weirdly, the times I do find myself drinking alone in the topic’s sense are when I hit beer festivals, before I’ve met up with anyone else: and this is more a matter of circumstance than preference. I’m there early, either for a blogger/media thing or beating the crowds or whatever and I will enjoy the fest and the beers until others show up.

Do I think it’s weird for going to the pub (or the fest or wherever) alone? Not at all. And yes I’m largely an introvert who values alone time. But to a large extent, drinking beer for me is more of a social activity and I don’t go seeking out time to myself at the pub. But that’s just me.