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Beer Is Cheaper In the US Than Anywhere Else In the World
derekmead writes "It's frustrating to drop $7 on a pint of beer in New York City, as it turns out, Americans have the cheapest beer on Earth. International bank UBS gathered data about the median wages and average retail prices of a 500mL (pint) beer in 150 countries. Those data were compiled to figure out how many minutes of work it takes the average worker of a country to earn enough money to buy a beer. It's funny that UBS analysts are spending time looking at beer, but considering that beer is beloved and nigh essential everywhere, it offers an interesting comparison between commodities and wages. For example, India tops the least, with the median worker having to work nearly an hour to afford a pint thanks to extremely low wages. In the U.S. however, where wages are relatively high and the cost of the average beer is quite low (thanks to those super-massive macrobreweries out there), it takes the median worker about five minutes of labor to afford a retail (store-, not bar-bought) pint. That's the shortest amount of time in the world, which means that, relatively speaking, beer is cheaper here than anywhere else." OK, UBS: Now please repeat the research with coffee.
Beer isn't a standard thing. Not even close.
And that is why economists prefer the McDonalds Big Mac for currency comparisons. :-)
Seriously, economists do have a Big Mac Index.
Absolutely wrong. There is an incredible variety of small breweries that make great beer and you can find many of them even at your average grocery store. Go to a specialty liqueur store and you can multiply that variety by 10 or more.
Before 1979 it was illegal to make beer in small batches (no joke) and this is where American beer got the bad reputation because only a handful of big companies were able to make beer (Bud, Coors, Miller....) and thanks to the government obtained control of the market and brought the quality way down. Since that was repealed there was an explosion of home brewing which then expanded into small business and microbreweries so that today there are over 1,400 breweries in the US making every possible type and flavor of beer imaginable.
I would actually go so far as to say that the American beer is now the best in the world as evidenced by the international competitions where the US beers dominate.
Negative moral value of force outweighs the positive value of good intentions.
Correction, there are over 2,000 micro and craft breweries in the US today and we're adding them at a bit over 200 net new breweries per year. That's 50% more than Germany and even on a per-capita basis we're projected to pass them by the end of the decade. It really is a good time to be a beer lover in America =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
Wow, the US can field 2651 individual beers? That is impressive. Thank you for the information, but I'm not sure it is saying what you want it to.
And you think Europe including places like germany can only field a couple hundred?
The point is, yes, of course the USA can produce some truly great beer. But there "world ranking" based on a contest held in San Diego where anyone foreign had to jump through some FDA hoops just to be allowed in, where 2/3rds of entrants were all american... where most countries didn't even field enough varieties to cover the categories, where the US fielded 10x more beers than other top beer nations, and up to 1000x more varieties than smal countries... the USA was almost BOUND to dominate the rankings unless it showed up with nothing but rank swill.
If america fields 2500 of its best, and germany fields 250 of its best... well... odds are pretty good that if both America and Germany are at the top of their games, America is going to dominate; purely on statistics... hell even if half the american entrants are garbage they'll still be holding a huge edge.