Many men have used it to justify something they regretted in the morning – but they can forget the "beer goggles'' excuse from now on, according to psychologists.

A study found that after drinking alcohol men actually see women as less attractive. Booze also makes no difference to a man's ability to guess a woman's age, the research found.

Scientists in Leicester asked a group of 240 men and women in bars and cafes to look at photos of women and comment on their age and attractiveness. Half the participants used in the experiment had drunk alcohol. Some of the pictures of 10 young women aged 17 were digitally altered to make them appear younger or older.

The findings showed that alcohol reduced the ability of women to guess the age of the photo models, but not men.

Dr Vincent Egan, from the University of Leicester, said: "Overall participants who drank alcohol actually rated all the women in the photos as less attractive, compared to the participants who hadn't drunk alcohol.

"This seemingly flies in the face of the commonly held notion of "beer goggles'."

Participants consistently over-estimated the age of the faces by an average of three-and-a-half years.