2012 US Per Capita Beer Consumption by State

The Dakotas and Montana are all in the top 5, but I didn't think anybody lived there?

 

Also, the Nevada number is likely skewed by Vegas tourism factoring heavily in to the numerator and not the denominator (of the per capita consumption calculation).

 

The Wisconsin numbers are probably skewed due to the number of people who venture great distances to come here and drink miller lite.

 

And when you consider that ND likely has very little tourism, it becomes even more impressive that they are #1.

 

We're number six - we need to drink more....starting now.

 

You're number six for shipments, not consumption. For consumption you're 26.

 

Then we have more to drink then I thought.

 

Yea! Something we're not last in!

 

Didn't think I drank that much!

 

The year I moved to NH, they took #1...now the state has slipped to #2...I have shamed myself...

 

Connecticut #50 New Jersey # 49 I guess people who drive Volvos don't drink beer!

 

I am kind of surprised that California is low in the consumption department.

 

Utah is so bad they finished 51st out of 50 states.

 

I'll be the first to say it... They must drink a TON on the Sioux reservations.

 

Also, did anybody catch that this is for malt beverages and not just beer? A ton of products fall under malt beverage. It doesn't even say that this is exclusively beverages that contain alcohol. I know that this header says the beer institute, but either the person who released this is a total dope at presenting data or there is some agenda to present this in such a vague way.

 

Oh WI, I've never been so disappointed...We used to be cool.

 

#2!!?? We're falling down the list!

Drink free or die!

 

"Malt Beverage" is the legal term for all beer on the Federal level, and is used by the industry. It does include FMB's* and Non-Alcoholic (aka "Near") Beer.

According to the Beer Institute's (the "Big Brewers" organization) Brewers Almanac which also contains this info:

(Sorry for the All-Caps - blame the B.I.)​

​

* Lots of "craft" beer is registered under the same TTB "beer type" as the FMB's/ malternatives, since they contain non-traditional ingredients (fruits, spices, maple syrup, other flavorings, barrel aging, etc). How would one separate them by state excise tax records?​

 

[quote="jesskidden, Lots of "craft" beer is registered under the same TTB "beer type" as the FMB's/ malternatives, since they contain non-traditional ingredients (fruits, spices, maple syrup, other flavorings, barrel aging, etc). How would one separate them by state excise tax records?[/LEFT][/quote)

Honestly, I would just look at the data sets and realized that the methodology was flawed from the ground up. Malternatives represent far too much of the market and probably far more than the casual reader might understand (read: most people don't realize how much of those coolers are malternatives. Those stats are interesting if you are in the grain business, but don't mean much for beer, in and of itself. There are regional, cultural, gender, et al factors, that skew all of this. But know what, for a thread in ba, I suppose none of it matters. But for most of my higher education and most of my professional life, if I presented that as it is, without taking the time to get a more solid data set from which to speak about product X, I would have never gotten my degrees or would have (rightfully so) been told to do the whole thing over.

 

Hell yeah, Texas #2!

 

Whoa...stereotyping and racist much? Oh, lemme guess...it's just a joke, right?

 

Just poking fun at a coincidence. Ease up. You do realize there are casinos on reservation land, right?

 

Actually, there is a correlation. The smaller states tend to consume more per capita. It should make sense (try to think of it in terms of who drinks). Now, throwing out the smaller states leaves Wisconsin, Texas and Iowa. Now that's interesting!

 

I can see that. In this case does shipments mean incoming or outgoing? If it's shipments of beer coming into the state, it's still weird that CA is number 1 in shipments but number 44 in per capita consumption.

 

Proud North Dakotan!

 

Yeah, for total...BTW isn't Texas a huge fucking state.

 

Everything is bigger in Texas, bro.

 

We drink a lot. Mostly because there's nothing else to do here.

We also don't have trees.

 

The TTB definition of malt beverage doesnt include non-alcoholic products. Im sure this is using that definition. And, yes, it does include a few non-beer things like Mike's Hard Lemonade, but they are small in total compared to beer.

 

Neither incoming nor outgoing. Total shipments to the state for consumption, including internal shipments. So if BBC or Stone "ships" beer to the CA distributor, it counts as a CA shipment. And the first number is raw total, so its no surprise at all that CA could be #1 in total shipments and still #44 in per capita consumption.

The consumption number is just the shipment number * 31 / adult population.

 

Yes it does.
Basic Mandatory Labeling Information for MALT BEVERAGES:

 

According to source of the information, The Beer Institute (quoted in full above), "shipment" is used in the normal industry manner, meaning shipments from wholesale distributors.

 

This is a good example of how statistics can be used to mislead. Every year after this list is published there's a lot of commentary and speculation about which are the "drunkest" states when in fact these numbers are strongly influenced by things that have nothing to do with the amount of beer that citizens of the various states actually drink: primarily tourism and cross-border sales impacted by state taxes and bottle deposits, which vary widely from state to state. To equate taxable shipments with consumption is simply wrong.

If the column on the chart that's headed "Per Capita Consumption" were instead headed "Taxable Shipments per Capita" (as it should be) this list would not get the attention it does each and every year. But then, what fun would that be?

 

Trees *are* awesome ... should we send you guys some for a big plant?

("We also don't have trees" has to be a Top 5 BA line ... i'm still laughing ...)