Beer Consumption in Europe

Which countries are the biggest beer drinkers in Europe?

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Last year, we already looked in detail at the alcohol consumption in Europe. Recently, the WHO released new data for 2019. In this map, we’re going to use that data and look at the beer consumption in Europe.

The largest consumer of beer in Europe, may come as no surprise. It’s the Czech Republic with 135 litres of beer. We can see a very interesting geographical patter. Central Europe is clearly the biggest consumer of beer. The Czech Republic, Austria, Poland and Germany, are not only the biggest consumer of beer in Europe, but the whole world. Romania is the biggest consumer of beer outside of Central Europe. Romania is no. 5 in Europe and also the global no. 5.

Turkey has by far the lowest beer consumption in Europe. The same goes for other south-eastern European countries like Albania, North Macedonia and Greece.

The WHO calculates the beer consumption in litres of pure alcohol. For this map, I’ve used those number and converted them to actual litres. As we’re not comparing different types of alcohol, the amount in litres of pure alcohol is less relevant. For this map, I’ve used an ABV of 5% as the standard. The ABV of the most consumed types of beer (Pilsener, lager etc.) is usually around 5%. However, there are of course many craft beers with an ABV higher than 5%.