The world’s top beer-consuming countries

11th October, 2012 by Andy Young

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Can you guess which country drinks the most beer per capita?

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has researched and published details of which countries consume the most alcohol per capita.

This information has also been broken down into beer, wines, spirits and overall alcohol consumption.

In publishing the report the WHO said its aim was to, “support Member States in collecting information in order to assist them in their efforts to reduce the harmful use of alcohol, and its health and social consequences.”

Dr Ala Alwan, WHO assistant director-general for Noncommunicable Diseases and Mental Health, added: “Many countries recognise the serious public health problems caused by the harmful use of alcohol and have taken steps to prevent the health and social burdens and treat those in need of care. But clearly much more needs to be done to reduce the loss of life and suffering associated with harmful alcohol use.”

But which countries consume the most beer? We’re pretty confident you’ll be surprised at who comes out on top.

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9 Responses to “The world’s top beer-consuming countries”

1. Dermot Nolan MW says:

   October 12, 2012 at 1:44 pm

   Interesting piece but my usual gripe – where’s the report? (The same gripe applies to the piece on older age groups and alcohol-health issues).
   For example, tourism in both Palau and Seychelles must increase the population substantially – was this effect considered or adjusted? Otherwise it would seem that data are being manipulated to achieve the desired result.
   Can I ask DB a simple question: does none of you have a critical or sceptical mind? If you believe, as I do, that there are major issues in relation to alcohol consumption then having a report which could be discredited due to poor methodology serves no useful purpose. I would have expected your editorial board to have raised these questions and sought clarification before publishing the article, or at least publishing with a caveat. Instead, you’ve gone for the tabloid-style headline!
   Somehow, I get the feeling I am wasting my sweetness on the desert air, but someone has to!

   Reply
2. Tom Lethaby says:

   October 12, 2012 at 1:51 pm

   This is just wrong surely? Per capita consumption figures of well over 100 litres per head are common place in main parts of the world.

   Reply
3. Peter Gebler says:

   October 12, 2012 at 2:32 pm

   In the form published here, the figures are either wrong or misleading. Germany has a declining beer consumption, but it is still above 100 litres per year. My assumption when looking at these figures is that they refer to absolute alcohol consumption. Thus, if Germans drink 6,22 litres of alcohol via beer, at say an average of 4,5% alc/vol,, then they would be drinking 138,2 litres of beer p.a., which sounds about right.

   Reply
4. Martyn Cornell says:

   October 12, 2012 at 2:47 pm

   This is NOT “beer consumption”, you idiots, it’s “litres of pure alcohol consumed while drinking beer”. Do you seriously think the Irish drink 14 pints of beer a year, each?

   Reply
5. Nick Roberts says:

   October 12, 2012 at 3:20 pm

   This data in this article is wrong. The US consumption rate for beer is much higher than that. New Hampshire ranks as the # 1 beer consumption state in the US, with 43.0 gallons. That is over 100 liters a year, per person. Our lowest ranking states average in the mid 20gallons per capita.

   Reply
6. javier salazar says:

   October 12, 2012 at 5:34 pm

   This cannot possibly be correct. In Chile wine consumption is 15 liters per capita, placing us in the lower bottom of wine producing countries. Here beer stats triple that of wine, so I can’t understand how your world beer rates rank in the below 10-liter categories. Where, and how did you gett your numbers?

   According to your rank, I am the largest beer consumer in the world.

   Reply
7. Andy Young says:

   October 12, 2012 at 5:36 pm

   I appreciate everyone’s comments, the information is taken from the World Health Organisation’s research and here is a link to their findings – http://www.who.int/substance_abuse/publications/global_alcohol_report/en/index.html

   Reply
8. Martin Moran MW says:

   October 14, 2012 at 10:04 pm

   Andy, I followed your link and the report is dated and launched 2011. Firstly bit odd to bring it up now. secondly there are individual country reports. I went to the Irish page, as that ‘s where I live. The info is mostly up to 2005! Situation here has changed dramatically since then, so this report is hopelessly out of date. Then Ireland consumed 14.4lt of pure alcohol. Think, off top of head, In 2010 that was down to 11.3lt. 2011 was up to 11.9lt. Aside from recession and mass emigration (principally by the beer drinking demographic of 20 somethings) drink driving laws have also changed. All in all a pretty pointless report and sensationalism of poor info. Oh and by the way spreading something over many many pages, when it could be told on one page, just to get more eyeballs (ie pageviews) is tiresome and I usually just exit the site. I only looked at a couple in this instance.

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9. samirra says:

   March 20, 2013 at 6:42 pm

   i think that beer is awful!!!

   Reply