Brits Can't Stop Breaking the World Record for Most Pubs Visited in 24 Hours

Mike Pomranz
·2 min read
A beer glass on a bar counter
A beer glass on a bar counter

IMAGINESTOCK / Getty Images

Setting a Guinness World Record comes with an inherent problem: Breaking the record brings attention to the record which can then encourage other people to try to break the record. It's why we often see the same record broken several times in a row. (I'm looking at you, M&M stacking.)  It's also why, when setting a record, it often makes sense to go the extra mile — or, in the case of Longest Journey by Pumpkin Boat, the extra 15.5 miles — to scare off potential challengers.

But apparently some records are just too tempting… especially for pub-loving Brits. Yes, the record for Most Pubs Visited in 24 Hours has apparently been broken once again — the third time in under a year — this time with an Englishman claiming to have bested the record set earlier this year by a Welshman who bested the previous record from last year set by an Englishman.

Nathan Crimp, a 22-year-old recruitment account manager, claims to have set the new record early Sunday morning after stopping at 67 different pubs in his hometown of Brighton, England, over the course of about 17 hours. According to the Liverpool Echo, his 18-mile crawl kicked off at 11 a.m. on Saturday, continuing through to 4 a.m. the next day.

If certified by Guinness World Records, Crimp's feat will have topped the most recent record of 56 pubs set on February 5 in Cardiff, Wales by 29-year-old Gareth Murphy. The Welshman earned international publicity when he broke the record earlier this year — which may have been his undoing: Murphy's crawl was a mere 10 hours long wrapping up at 8 p.m., a time many people start visiting pubs.

Even then, Crimp admitted the feat was more difficult than he thought. "It was easily the hardest thing I've ever done. I completely underestimated just how hard it was actually going to be," he told the Echo. He then reiterated a complaint that Murphy had described, "To drink that much liquid in such a short space of time — I must have packed away easily 20 to 30 liters [over 5 to 6.5 gallons].  The hardest part was constantly having to go to the toilet, which took up the majority of the time."

Crimp said he was, at some points, "too bloated to speak," and it was his friends who were traveling with him "that would tell the pub about what we were doing."

But is that unpleasant experience enough to fend off any would-be challengers? If the past year is any indication, we'll know that answer in just a few months.