Top 10 countries that drink the most beer

The UK doesn’t even rank in the top 10.

By Sara Rigby

2023-07-25 07:55:00

Different countries have different claims to fame, including being the happiest on Earth, but there’s one questionable prize that many clamour for – being the nation that drinks the most beer. What countries drink the most beer in the world?

If you’ve been out on the town in Cardiff, Newcastle, or Bristol, you may think the UK is near the top of the list – the island nation certainly has a reputation for binge drinking – but we don’t even make it into the top 20 in terms of the total amount of beer drunk per capita.

No matter its reputation for being heavy drinkers, the UK doesn’t appear in the top ten countries that drink the most beer in the world. The latest rankings have the UK down as low 25th place, with the USA up in 17th.

The latest poll by Kirin Brewery Company examines the total per-capita beer consumption by country in 2021, and without further ado, here are the top ten countries that drink the most beer.

10. Croatia – 82.4 litres per capita

9. Namibia – 85.7 litres per capita

8. Spain- 88.5 litres per capita

7. Germany – 90.4 litres per capita

6. Estonia – 91.4 litres per capita

5. Poland – 94.1 litres per capita

4. Romania – 95.6 litres per capita

3. Lithuania – 96.3 litres per capita

2. Austria- 98.7 litres per capita

1. Czech Republic – 184.1 litres per capita

The country that drinks the most beer in the world per capita is the Czech Republic, which consumes 184.1 litres per capita annually. That’s close to double the amount of beer consumed per capita compared to Austria’s 98.7 litres in second place.

This marks the 29th year in a row that the Czech Republic has consumed the most beer in the world per capita. It’s the equivalent of each person drinking 290.8 633ml bottles of beer a year. That’s… a lot of beer.

Surprisingly enough, this makes up around 1.1 per cent of the global beer market share (19th place in the world), with the Czechs downing 1,969 thousand kilolitres of the stuff in 2021. Thanks to its population of just under 10.5 million, this makes its beer drunk per capita statistic skyrocket.

To put this in perspective, China drinks the most beer in terms of total volume – 38,093 thousand kilolitres – and doesn’t even break the top 35 countries in beer drunk per capita owing to its population of 1.425 billion people.

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