The legal drinking age here in Finland is 18, and feels weird how it is 21 in USA.
German here with similar laws to yours, though wine and beer legal with 16: legal age of 21 is in line with experts’ recommendations regarding brain development, however it’s questionable if this approach achieves the goal. If you want to discourage teenage drinking, make it unappealing, not illegal; but then we might have to acknowledge that we have an industry that heavily profits from a risky substance that puts a huge burden on society (several billion in damages each year) and we might have to regulate some aspects instead of just blaming the unfortunate people who got screwed over.
That sounds super late indeed. Teens will always drink, I think it’s better they can do it in a safe place instead of a forest with a bottle of vodka they got somewhere.
