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Beer Is Cheaper In the US Than Anywhere Else In the World
derekmead writes "It's frustrating to drop $7 on a pint of beer in New York City, as it turns out, Americans have the cheapest beer on Earth. International bank UBS gathered data about the median wages and average retail prices of a 500mL (pint) beer in 150 countries. Those data were compiled to figure out how many minutes of work it takes the average worker of a country to earn enough money to buy a beer. It's funny that UBS analysts are spending time looking at beer, but considering that beer is beloved and nigh essential everywhere, it offers an interesting comparison between commodities and wages. For example, India tops the least, with the median worker having to work nearly an hour to afford a pint thanks to extremely low wages. In the U.S. however, where wages are relatively high and the cost of the average beer is quite low (thanks to those super-massive macrobreweries out there), it takes the median worker about five minutes of labor to afford a retail (store-, not bar-bought) pint. That's the shortest amount of time in the world, which means that, relatively speaking, beer is cheaper here than anywhere else." OK, UBS: Now please repeat the research with coffee.
...it's also worse than anywhere else in the world. No joke, people.
a pint != 500mL
a pint == 568mL
It's fucking close to water.
Jesus was a compassionate social conservative who called individuals to sin no more.
It considers abominations like Bud Light to be beer.
I am officially gone from
Vodka is pointless.
The cause of, and solution to, all of life's problems.
There is a big difference between a "40" of St Ides for 2 bucks, and a 5$ to 7$ pint of "micro-brew".
St. Louis produces millions of gallons of piss water alternatively known as "beer", but this doesn't mean that the rest of the world drinks this stuff and would classify it as "beer".
If you want news from today, you have to come back tomorrow.
False, but you go on being ignorant.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
There's one purpose for alcohol, and Vodka tends to accomplish that faster and with less vomiting and hangovers. So I'll raise my glass, which is cheaper here than anywhere else, and toast Vodka's awesomeness.
Charisma is the measure of someone's ability to lie with a straight face.
No, this was the best:
http://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2012/09/daily-chart-13
Love to see their workings out too. Points to massively overpriced cartel running the Indian market (and probably the top 5).
I'll save you the time: "American beer sucks, har har har".
Really? You *all* think you're clever for saying that?
Anyway -- it's not even true. That is, it's a meaningless statement. America has an enormous range of native beers, of every style, strength, and flavor. It's true that our tastes run toward weaker beers, but it's just stupid to say popular = "American".
Tom Geller
But, I strongly suspect that there is a correlation between the availability of inexpensive mood altering substances, like alcohol, and the amount of bullshit that the average working person will be willing to endure.
Look at the prohibition era in the US; crime and criminality were rampant, and so was outright civil disobedience. Activism by juries in courtrooms were at stellar highs.
Now, we have "the cheapest beer in the world" (pun intended), and our citizenry is reluctant to raise a finger against even clearly horrendous civil liberty violations, like the recent "indefinate detainment" legislation.
I would like to see research comparing effective availability of alcohol and other drugs with the rates of political activism.
Mind you, its just a hunch.
Vodka is better than beer. It gives a nice warm kick and you don't need to go piss all the time. Many of the Russian vodkas all so have a nice little taste to them.
Beer is proof that God loves us and wants us to be happy. Vodka is a proof that Satan wants you not to remember being happy under the table. Sincerely Yours, Ben Franklin
Ezekiel 23:20
While I agree it is subjective, American beer generally is not well thought of. In WWII all the German beer brewers were run out of business in the US, after which locals had to pick up the slack and essentially start from scratch, so all the skill and knowledge was lost. We have started to catch up again now that we have cycled through a few generations but it was still a pretty serious fall.
i agree with you, but our placement on this list is definitely due at least partly to our low-quality beers.
the funny thing is i can buy 9% craft beer for less than 2.5x the unit price of a big-brand pisswater (3.5%) beer, and it tastes 10x better as well, but that doesn't show up on this chart. i bet we'd also be close to the top for consumer purchasing power of high-quality beer (however that's defined), but not #1.
"They were pure niggers." – Noam Chomsky
Not everyone likes distilled liquors such as Vodka. I have no stomach for it and do not enjoy it in the slightest.
Beer on the other hand I enjoy greatly. I stick to mainly micro and craft brews. I don't drink my beer to get drunk, I drink it because I enjoy the many many different flavor profiles possible with different types of beers and ingredients used. You sound like the typical youth of today, the only way to drink is in excess and the only reason to drink is to get drunk. Grow up and mature a bit, the world doesn't need more irresponsible alcoholics.
Vodka is better than beer.
I'm surprised to hear you say that VodkaGuy...I had you pegged as more of a wine-drinking-guy.
The basic sleazeware produced in a drunken fury by a bunch of UCBerkeley grad students was still the core of BIND. --PV
It is true. While there are some excellent beers in this country, the fact is, the average quality is utterly abysmal due to the likes of Bud, Coors, Miller, etc.
Even though some of these are starting to put out higher-quality beers, the majority of their sales are low-cost low-quality crap.
As a result, the average quality of beers in this country matches the average price at best... more likely the average quality is below the average price.
Just because you CAN get high-quality beer at reasonable prices in this country doesn't mean that the majority of beer sold/consumed in this country is cheap crap.
retrorocket.o not found, launch anyway?
There's one purpose for alcohol, and Vodka tends to accomplish that faster and with less vomiting and hangovers. So I'll raise my glass, which is cheaper here than anywhere else, and toast Vodka's awesomeness.
There's only one kind of person who thinks there is but a single use for alcohol.
An alcoholic.
Have fun with your "less" vomiting and hangovers. I'll stick with no puking and more pleasure, or perhaps choose alternatives that don't cause a blatant poisoning effect on my body.
There's one purpose for alcohol, and Vodka tends to accomplish that faster and with less vomiting and hangovers. So I'll raise my glass, which is cheaper here than anywhere else, and toast Vodka's awesomeness.
There are at least three practical purposes. Add disinfectant to the list, also add fuel / fire starter when the proof gets above (80?). Obviously these are not the intended purposes but Vodka has been used in these ways when the circumstances warranted.
The following explanation has been attempted in many armies over many years:
"Sir, that is not a still. That is an apparatus creating field expedient disinfectant for the doctors/medics/corpsmen, sir."
You may find that you'll get beer at the Oktoberfest by the liter. And it costs nearly 10 Euros.
Prosit!
20 minutes into the future
In WWII all the German beer brewers were run out of business in the US, after which locals had to pick up the slack and essentially start from scratch, so all the skill and knowledge was lost.
Funny, I never heard this excuse as to why the beer sucked so bad in the US. So after which war did you run the french restaurants out of business to explain why the food is so bad in the US ? Yeah, flamebait, but having live 6 years in the US I still stand by it. But you now have great microbrews nowadays.
And back to the topic at hand, how many hours of stoning does it take to have a pint in Saudi Arabia ?
BTW, the cheapest brew is in my home: I brew my own. It's cheap and fun and good (small print: apart from the occasional screw up or too 'experimental' recipe).
Non-Linux Penguins ?
If it has a commercial on TV it is a bad beer.
This is a universal truth. Even applies in Germany.
20 minutes into the future
What were the results when you multiply by the average percentage of alcohol found in native beers?
Perhaps you mean the the original classic Czech beer called 'Budweiser'. The one that the US brews on license and is famous for being of much lower quality. You should try the original, then you will know what a travesty that rancid 'sex in a canoe' swill that passes for beer in the US is.
No offense, but I love German beer and they have a high quality generally but.... the American beer scene has a lot more variety and a bigger willingness to be innovative. German beer, not so much.
We are in a better position now than anytime since Prohibition and probably before too.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
No, American beers short you.
A proper beer is 500ml or 1L. A 330/335 is for children.
See Beer Advocate. American beer isn't all crappy lager in cans... we have an incredibly vibrant craft beer and homebrewing scene. I drink the former and make the latter myself, and these lips shall never meet swill! Mostly because it's cheaper to brew up a quick ten gallon batch of pale ale than to buy a vomit-inducing Budweiser. I guess it speaks to the power of marketing that folks outside of (or even inside!) the US think so lowly of our beer.
HAL 7000, fewer features than the HAL 9000, but just as homicidal!
What happened is after prohibition they started adding corn and rice to beer and people were just glad to have any beer to drink even if it tasted like corn (which is cheap).
Most people aren't picky and it started a trend.
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.
But Standard American Lager is a recognized type of Beer, like IPA or Pilsner Although not the only type of beer produced in the US (and one I prefer not to drink), it is the style most commonly associated with US beer. Do all American beers suck? Defintally not. Does the beer type closely associated with the US, bears the name America, and the top 3 brands, BudLite, Budwiser, and CoorLite, which account for 50.1% of the US market, suck? Depends on your taste.
But like it or not, and I am guessing you do not, this popular(in the US) style of beer is what is meant by American beer.
BJCP Standards for judging American Standard Lagers
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_lager
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beer_in_the_United_States#Economy
That would eliminate all wheat beers and a great many really good beers.
Many breweries claim to comply, but really don't. I have even seen such claims on wheat beer bottles. Since Reinheitsgebot clearly only allows Water, Barley and Hops, they cannot comply. Yeast was added later as it was unknown at the time.
Weird opinion - the US is near the tops in terms of food quality in the world, based on my experience. And has a far superior amount of diversity in its high quality fine dining options to most countries I've visited in Europe and the Americas. Try eating your way around New York, San Francisco (and throughout the bay area), Napa and Sonoma Counties in California, Charleston in South Carolina, or any of the foodie meccas around the US.
Don't even bother trying to drink any beer unless it is brewed to the Bavarian Purity Law standard of 1516. Lots of smaller breweries in the U.S. and Canada have beer that complies.
What a load of bullshit. The more people ignore this outdated law, the more interesting beers are created.
It doesn't mean much now, it's built for the future.
Figure the one time set up cost for a home brew: ~250 bucks.
Hops kit required: ~50bucks
Result: 5 gallons of GOLD. As it's difficult to guess the breakdown on the startup costs per batch, let's ignore it for a moment and focus on simply the cost of the materials to make a batch. At 10bucks/gallon for whatever quality you want, that's pretty damn spiffy ( of course, I'm ignoring labor too. Because it's a labor of LOVE ).
Mod me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!
I suspect that the percentage of beer sold in the US that belongs to the sucky variety vindicates the joke.
I wonder if it's circular logic, that american beer sucks because american beer sucks and everyone says so. Or is some type of hipster sentiment "You like American beer? Bah! You don't know beer. My favorite beer? You've probably never heard of it, so I won't bother mentioning it."
569ml is the proper unit of measurement for beer =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
You know, the kind that doesn't have to have a shitload of preservatives in it to make sure it's still "fresh" in 6 months.
In the UK, the Budweiser "Fresh Beer Tastes Better" adverts were banned by the Advertising Standards Agency, because "fresh" beer quite demonstrably does *not* taste better. Anyone who has made homebrew will tell you this...
Better yet, just keep your vodka in the freezer and drink it straight.
This is really measuring the wealth of countries, not the cheapness of beer since it measures the number of minutes worked to pay for a beer. Even the major European economies have per capita GDP's 20%-30% lower than the US when measure via PPP (Purchasing power parity).
Scotch (or even a decent bourbon) does the same thing and actually has some complexity. Vodka is too sterile and lifeless for me... it's good in drinks but I can't imagine drinking it straight.
"It is a denial of justice not to stretch out a helping hand to the fallen; that is the common right of humanity."
And that's only because American wages are high
Which screws it up even worse, since the labor force participation rate is low and dropping fast. Soon, we'll be a minority of population working country.
Better to take median annual income than median wage, since only about sixty percent of the population currently has a job.
There are countries with higher, and lower, labor force participation rates. Beer consumption is not limited to wage earners, in fact it tends toward non-wage earners, which has some secondary price forcing effect, in that if your consumers are unemployed and students and retired people, expensive good stuff isn't going to sell.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
Mass produced beer has become increasingly bad all around the world. But also the beer culture has gone downhill. That is why people still buy bad beer. I haven't seen the chart of the top 10 most sold beers of the world but I wil hazard a guess I wouldn't drink it.
Let me explain how a beer garden in Germany(Munich area) works:
You go there on a sunny afternoon. Next to the place were they actually sell the beer you will find shelves of mugs. The 1 liter variety. You take a mug and go to a big basin filled with clear water were you rinse the mug. There will also be little brushes. Use them.
With your mug you go to the end of the queue. When it is your turn, tell them what you want. Don't be fancy, they only have two barrels. Say "Ein Helles, bitte". Pay in cash. No plastic. Don't rely on them having change. Find a nice bench under a chestnut tree and enjoy your beer.
And have a nice lunch.
You have brought lunch, have you?
If you go to a beer garden they only expect you to buy the beer there. You can bring your own food. Otherwise you might find everything to be a bit expensive.
Everything is trees and wood and wasps and rabbits frolicking on the green. There might even be fucking butterflies and flowers and shit.
Me and a couple of mates once went to the Hirschgarten on a Sunday morning and went home when they closed it. I drank 9 liters of beer, ate 2 chickens, a couple of those giant pretzels with a cartload of Obatzta(a Bavarian cheese specialty) and a Steckerlfisch(a mackerel). All in all I spent 200 Euros on food over the course of 12 hours and felt like I got my money's worth. Best Sunday ever. YMMV.
20 minutes into the future
Here on Slashdot, we should all be drinking rum since rum is what pirates drink and everyone knows nerds love pirates.
And ninjas. But sake is nasty, i'll stick to the rum myself.
Hefe, means the yeast is still in suspension as the beer is not filtered. Yeast is selected for this behavior. Proper serving of a Hefe includes swirling the last few 10s of mls to get any settled yeast into the glass.
Again you show your ignorance. Beer cannot said to be infected by yeast, as it is integral to the process. The sour you claim is brett and that is not found in Hefes.
I have never been to a place in the US where beer is as cheap as it is in Germany. I am not saying that the cheap stuff is the best quality, but their cheap beer is better than the average US beer, by far.
And were will you get Bud Light in Munich? Is it even sold there? If so, why?
4-5% for the mass market lagers just like basically everywhere. You can find everything from 2-12% ABV in most well stocked specialty stores though the typical range is 4-9%. Some states have a limit on the maximum ABV allowed under the tax bracket for beer and so you won't typically be able to find anything above that statute limit.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
No, because of the name clash between Budweiser (Anheuser-Busch) and Budweiser (Budvar), Anheuser-Busch is not allowed to sell a beer called "Budweiser" in Germany (and in some other european countries).
Weird opinion - the US is near the tops in terms of food quality in the world, based on my experience.
He, have you really stepped out of the US ?!?
Try eating your way around New York
Every time I mention food being bad in the US, americans always go "but you have to try it in NY!". Why ? NY is only a tiny subset of the US and also variety != quality. And for your information I've been in NY and the crappy 25$ burgers were just as bad as ANY other burger. If you go to a random unassuming restaurant in Italy [for instance], chances are you'll find the antipasti and the pizza and the pasta delicious. And for less than 20$/Euro. If you do the same anywhere in the US, chances are you'll shit that fast food in your pants if you can't find a toilet fast enough. Travel, and see for yourself.
Non-Linux Penguins ?
People were brewing with it for thousands of years before that. It was however not known as anything separate, they just mixed old beer with new to start fermentation. Yeast was discovered by Van Leeuwenhoek in 1719.
The brewery you chose is not even particularly old, Weihenstephaner has been brewing since 1040.
Sam Adams certainly advertizes on TV and they have good beers.
Dogfish head had a TV show a while back on the discovery channel essentially a 20 minute commerical they have very good beers.
Commercialization does not make something bad it typically means they have had success, I know the hipster in you hates when everybody starts liking something you liked first and that there is no way the masses could ever have as sophisticated tastes as you.
Knowledge = Power
P= W/t
t=Money
Money = Work/Knowledge so the less you know the more you make
The inexpensive American "beer" that is used in this calculation uses maize and rice instead of barley as the main ingredient, grasses that happen to be heavily subsidised here and hardly used to make beer anywhere else. If you want to drink beer that is made of the same base ingredients as the real stuff then it will cost about 2x as much in the supermarket here as it does at a bar in Amsterdam. There are a lot of breweries in the US that make some really good beer, especially ones founded in the last two decades, but that stuff ain't cheap, at least not yet.
So, in the US you'd probably need to purchase ~1 2/5 cans of regular swill to get 500ml, considering that the cheapest and most common beer comes in 355ml cans.
Actually, most major brands are also available in 16 oz. (473ml) "tall boy" cans, and they're often marginally cheaper in that package than in 12 oz. containers. (Probably because it's positioned as being a slightly "lower class" product.)
I'm living in beer heaven, Belgium, and I miss the CO brews. Greater variety there, but really... I'm not complaining. Especially since I just finished my first Westvleteren. :D
I think that you're just bad at picking restaurants.
I've been to Australia (Victoria and the NT), and I've been to Argentina (Buenos Aires and Mar del Plata), Canada (Ontario, New Brunswick and PEI), and I'm from the US, where I've visited (NY, ME, NH, MA, RI, CT, NJ, PA, DE, MD, WV, VA, NC, SC, TN, GA, FL, AL, MS, LA, TX, NM, CO, UT, AZ, CA, NV, OR, WA, ID, MT, WY, NE, IA, IL, IN, and OH).
I've had a good meal in practically every city I've been to. Smaller towns are a bit more hit-or-miss. If it's a hamlet or smaller with just one restaurant, then maybe you'll get lucky.
However, as a rule of thumb, it is best to stay away from a place that has an expensive menu (such as a $25 burger), but is empty. Instead, look for the seedy-looking place that has a line coming round the back and where the waiters make you point at the menu because they can't understand you.
There's one purpose for alcohol, and Vodka tends to accomplish that faster and with less vomiting and hangovers. So I'll raise my glass, which is cheaper here than anywhere else, and toast Vodka's awesomeness.
Beer tastes good (well, not Budweiser - but real beers), you have to mix vodka with other things to make it tolerable.
You simply haven't had good Vodka.
Vodka is like whiskey, good whiskey does not need to be mixed, crap whiskey should never be drunk straight. I think this is true for most spirits.
That cheap arse bottle of Smirnoff is not good vodka. Neither is Absolut.
Calling someone a "hater" only means you can not rationally rebut their argument.
...and that's fine.
I'm sure that you probably don't like the taste of coffee or chocolate, either. If you partake in either of those, you probably load it up with milk, sugar and/or other flavourings to disguise the taste of the bean.
Personally, I don't mind, and can appreciate the subtleties in, good quality bitter foods. This doesn't make me superior to you in any way. "I don't like it" or "I can't stand it" is not the same thing as "anyone who likes it is the victim of groupthink".
Yeah, megaswill lager is awful stuff. Especially the American stuff. Which, incidentally, is a lasting side-effect of prohibition. Most of the breweries shut down, and when prohibition was lifted, only a few remained. The lack of competition resulted in a cheaper, inferior product, and the rest is history. Tying it into TFA, that is almost certainly one of the reasons why beer is so cheap.
FWIW, I can't stand the taste of strawberries. Go figure.
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Knee jerk anti-Americanism is pretty popular on the Internet these days. Much easier to look at the US as one big country rather than a union of fifty states, thousands of counties, and tens of thousands of towns and cities. Only in Europe can two towns five hundred miles away from each other be different and unique. Contrast that with the US where Hoboken is identical to Raleigh is identical to Chicago in the mind of a non-American..
Jesus was all right but his disciples were thick and ordinary. -John Lennon
When Budvar registered the Budweiser brand in the Austro-Hungarian Empire in 1895, they were the first to do so. And Budvar is incorporated in Budweis (as it was called then), and thus they had a natural right to describe their beer as being "from Budweis" or "being Budweiser". Anheuser-Busch didn't intervene, though they had the Budweiser brand registered in the U.S. since 1860. No one even thought in 1895, that this could lead to any problems, Anheuser-Busch selling their beer in North America, and Budvar serving the European market. It wasn't until the 1920ies before Anheuser-Busch Budweiser even reached Europe.
Even today, it's still possible to have the same trademark for the same product class registered to different entities in different countries.