This content was originally published by The Hop Review, a digital magazine that joined the Hop Culture family in March 2020.
This piece was written by Jack Muldowney.
ST. LOUIS, MO
Study Shows America’s Favorite Beer Style Still Lager
In 2015, Americans spent $33.6 billion and bought 1.5 Billion cases of beer? That is a lot of beer, no doubt.
And today, April 7, is National Beer Day–which marked the end of Prohibition in 1933, allowing people to buy and drink beer public. In honor of this momentous occasion, beer site Let’s Grab a Beer solicited an official survey* to highlight America’s drinking habits. They used those findings to create their own “Brewnited States” heatmap representing beer styles that are popular across the USA, based on figures provided by IRI.
The findings are far from mind-blowing, and should be taken with a grain of salt (it’s worth noting, that despite the sourced stats, Let’s Grab a Beer is an Anheuser-Busch website***).
New England appears to drink seasonally. New York chose to stand alone (as with many things categorically), reaching for European lagers. The Midwest and the rest of the Heartland gets lumped together, favoring a good ‘ol American Lager (not surprising given the location of some macro outfits). The Southeast (plus Alaska) likes their beer ‘dark.’ IPAs own the Northwest, while Mexican adjuncts fair best out West…and in New Jersey apparently. Meanwhile, Wisconsinites and Wyomingites spend their time drinking over a variety.
‘LGAB’ also conducted a national survey, which the following intriguing findings:
- The majority of working Americans 21+ and nearly 3 out of 4 Millennials (72%), would like their work to close early on National Beer Day. – Work? Nah, beer.
- Beer is more popular amongst Millennials (55%) than mixed drinks (35%), wine (30%), vodka (27%), whisky (24%), champagne/Prosecco (19%), gin (8%), tequila (1%) and rum (0%). – A collective “ouch” to rum. Sorry, rum.
- Americans would most like to have a beer with Tiny Fey, narrowly beating out Jimmy Fallon. – A ‘Weekend Update’ showdown.
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*Facts provided courtesy of IRI/2015
**Statistics provided by Wakefield Research in a custom online survey to 1,000 nationally representative U.S. adults ages 21+
***The most unusually popular beer styles by region were determined by examining total category, off-premise beer sales only, nationwide from the last 52 weeks, ending 2/28/16. Specific beer styles that are sold in remarkably higher numbers in specific regions of the country are noted.