States that consume the most Beer

I received my latest "All About Beer" Magazine and began thumbing through it and found this cool (at least to me) blurb on the top ten beer consuming states for 2012.  It had some surprises to me in the rankings.  Many states that would seem to make sense were not even in the top ten.  That means no Oregon, Missouri, California, Illinois nor Iowa listed in the top ten.  Just because a state produces large quantities of beer or has many breweries in them, it does not mean that state will consume the most beer.  Listed below are the top ten states with per person consumption. 

1. New Hampshire: 43.0 gallons
2. North Dakota: 42.2 gallons
3. Montana: 40.6 gallons
4. South Dakota: 38.0 gallons
5. Nevada: 36.5 gallons
6. Wisconsin: 36.2 gallons
7. Vermont: 34.7 gallons
8. Texas: 34.6 gallons
9. Nebraska: 34.6 gallons
10. Delaware: 34.3 gallons

Looking at the above numbers a few things stand out to me.  First the traditional beer swilling state that most people would think to be on top was only in 6th place; and to my cheddar-head friends "You are slackers"!  Second thing that stands out to me is that over half of the states have lower populations, thus their ability to consume that much beer is impressive.  Third, evidently people living in the upper Midwest must not have much else to do but drink.  Another little factoid I noticed is that all ten of the states drank more than a barrel of beer per person, a barrel of beer is 31.5 US gallons.  Or break it down even further that is over 252 pints of beer or another way of thinking is having about a pint of beer 2 out of every three days of the year.  So these people are dedicated drinkers. The people of New Hampshire truly do shine in only missing having a pint of beer every day of the year by 21 days, impressive.

Something that came to mind as I am typing is that probably in actuality the real numbers are higher than reported.  Since it is a fact people almost always under report how much they consume.  So there may be a state that averages a pint of beer a day.

All of these numbers are achieved with an increase of 1.9% of beer shipments and craft beer sales rose by 12%.  Craft beer continues to be the fastest growing segment of beer sales.  No wonder the big two are purchasing craft breweries and continue to make up craft beer labels.  They are trying to cash in the segment of the market that is growing the fastest.

Please support real craft beer and your local craft and micro breweries.  Be careful of "craft beer" with ties to the big two, i.e. Goose Island, Windmer, Kona, Magic Hat, etc.

QC Beerguy