Brits on the booze
Friday February 26, 2010 - Email this article to a friend

The infamous Moosewirt pub in St Anton seems to be the focus of attention as 2 tabloids detail the drunken antics there as people stop around 4pm and hit the après ski with some gusto.

Then they attempt to ski back down to the Austrian village in fading light. 'Ibiza on ice' is how one dubs it.

Both the Daily Mail and the Daily Star have visited the resort recently, and anyone who knows St Anton well will recognise what they are writing about.

It comes as the Foreign Office warns people of the dangers of drinking alcohol in ski resorts.  This season there is a special campaign going on as we reported earlier in the winter when it was launched.

On the bar in the Apres Ski, VerbierSo, do the British drink to excess in ski resorts?

They certainly have a reputation for doing so. In PlanetSKI's base resort of Verbier in Switzerland the loudest bars are full of British. 

The Apres Ski in the Farinet on the Place Central is the wildest place early evening with live bands playing.  

Every night large amounts of alcohol are consumed and people end up dancing on tables, bars and sometimes hanging off the ceiling too.

See the short video below. Looks pretty harmless to us.

Later many of the same people can be found at The Pub Mont Fort, where it can also get pretty wild. The Wonderbar and T-bar can be pretty full on sometimes - both popular with the British.

However there is no particularly wild bar up on the slopes that people ski back from as darkness falls.

But it is not always the clichéd image of the young male hitting the booze that is the reality in ski resorts.

Not just beer and jaggerbombsVerbier has some very expensive mountain restaurants with rich clients and they have been known to drink large quantities of expensive wine and then ski down the slopes after a 3 hour lunch the worse for wear.

One group of rich middle-aged British men last season had a long lunch in Le Crystal restaurant and then stole a live lobster from the restaurant for a prank. 

They skied down to town with it and brought it out in another bar, Le Fer au Cheval, to the surprise and disgust of many.

But this behaviour is out of the ordinary and in some ways a journalist can find what he or she goes looking for.

There are many people in the Milk Bar having a cup of tea and a cake, rather than beer and jagerbombs.  There is an English church that has well attended services every Sunday.

Each season though people die in ski resorts as a result of excessive alcohol.  A man died in Verbier a few years ago when he passed out in the snow on New Year's eve and died of hypothermia overnight.

This season a British man, Myles Robinson, died in Wengen and, though the circumstances are still unclear, he had been drinking and was over the drink/drive limit.

Last winter a British student died in Val d'Isere and 2 men in Les Deux Alpes.

However it is not just the British that seem to like their alcohol in ski resorts.

In Chamonix the Swedes have a reputation for excess and in many Austrian resorts the locals, helped by the large influx of Germans, know how to keep the beer flowing. 

The pictures below are from Ischgl when we were there in November, hardly the height of the apres ski season, but it was in full swing at 5pm.

There is no doubt that alcohol plays a huge part in ski resorts and people enjoying their holiday.

For those of us that spend the winter in the Alps keeping the après ski under control is vital if we want our livers, and our wallets, to survive reasonably intact.

It also doesn't make for a great day's skiing if it is started with a monster hangover. Cheers!

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