🍻 shows two foaming beer mugs clashing mid-toast. It arrived with Unicode 6.0 in 2010 and its official name is “clinking beer mugs,” though most people just call it the “cheers emoji” or the “beers emoji.” Where 🍺 is a single drink, this one is about doing it together, so it carries a sense of company, celebration and a job finished.
How it’s used
- Making plans: “Pub after work? 🍻”
- Marking the end of a week: “It’s Friday. Cheers to surviving it 🍻”
- Congratulations: “You got the job!! First round’s on me 🍻”
- Toasting a win: “We shipped it. Cheers to that 🍻”
- Game day or barbecue invitations: “Come over Saturday, bring a cooler 🍻”
It is a very social emoji, so it tends to show up in group chats rather than one-to-one messages. 🥂 (clinking glasses) is the dressier cousin for weddings and New Year’s toasts; 🍻 fits a pub, a backyard or a stadium parking lot.
Korea, Japan and the English-speaking world
In English the emoji works as a general-purpose “cheers.” It is tied to pubs, sports bars, tailgating and Oktoberfest, and in the UK it often means a pint with friends. Plenty of people use it for a toast with no alcohol at all, as in “Cheers to a great year 🍻,” and it is a common sign-off on celebratory posts at work.
In Korea it sits very close to the after-work dinner culture called 회식. It is paired with combinations like 치맥 (fried chicken and beer) and 소맥 (soju mixed with beer), and with the shout 짠! when glasses meet. A lone 🍻 in a friend group chat is a perfectly clear invitation to meet up.
In Japan the Japanese name literally reads “toast with beer” (ビールで乾杯), and the toast itself is the point. It fits the habit of opening a night out with a first round of draft beer and the standing greeting お疲れさま, so a colleague might simply send “お疲れ🍻” after a long day.
Where it gets misread
- It is directly tied to alcohol, so think twice before using it in spaces with minors, with someone avoiding drinking, or in formal announcements.
- It is not 🍺. A single mug means “having a beer” or “craving a beer,” while 🍻 means a shared toast.
- It is not 🥂 either. Champagne glasses suit weddings and black-tie events; the beer mugs read as casual.
- In cultures or communities where drinking is taboo, an invitation made with 🍻 can come across as thoughtless, so know your audience.
Design differences by platform
Nearly every platform draws two handled mugs tilted toward each other with foam spilling out, so the emoji is recognizable everywhere. The differences are in the details: how golden the beer looks, how much foam splashes, and how transparent the glass is. Some versions feel crisp and realistic, others cartoonish and exuberant, but none of them changes the meaning. If you are sending a toast, the picture will arrive intact whichever phone the other person holds.
