Welsh Man Breaks Guinness World Record, Drinking in 56 Pubs in 24 Hours

A Welsh man has etched his name in the history books for a particularly impressive sounding bargoing feat: The most pubs visited in a 24 hour period. Gareth Murphy, from Caernarfon, Wales, broke the Guinness World Record for the feat with 56 pubs, surpassing the previous record of 51 pubs in 24 hours, which was set just last year by Englishman Matt Ellis.

Murphy, a 29-year-old IT worker, targeted the city center of Cardiff for the feat, noting that it contained far more bars and pubs than he would ever need. In fact, Cardiff’s city center has the greatest concentration of pubs in the entire U.K. according to Guinness, with more than 300 in roughly a .5 square mile area. That meant a minimum of walking and transportation for an increasingly bloated Murphy as the day wore on, no doubt an important aspect of being able to visit 56 pubs in a 24-hour span.

Before you go off envisioning a full-on Edgar Wright, World’s End scenario, though, we are sad to report that for this particular record, the challenger is only required to consume “a beverage” in each location, rather than an alcoholic beverage. Murphy, in fact, only seemingly consumed a small handful of beers during the otherwise impressive crawl, mostly sticking to an eclectic array of juice, lemonade, soda and cordials. The entire crawl likewise had to be documented for authenticity, with signatures from all the pub operators along the way, and the Guinness website contains a full list of the many, many pints of various liquid that Murphy ultimately consumed. This ultimately is the most impressive (and grossest) aspect of what Murphy did—I can safely say that I would not want to drink 8.6 pints of orange juice or 5 pints of apple juice during any 24-hour period.

Murphy ultimately called it quits with plenty of time to spare, finishing his 56 pubs at 9:26 p.m. local time. One can only imagine that if he’d kept going, he could have stretched the record at least into the mid 60s. Perhaps some other enterprising U.K. drinker thinks they have it in them to break the record once again?