America loves beer. We reportedly drink nearly 7 billion gallons of the stuff annually.
How and where we consume, however, varies significantly by state. To get to the bottom of this phenomenon, VinePair culled data from 24/7 Wall St. to see what states drink the most beer. We spent hours poring over the results.
In some instances, legal or administrative precedents drive trends — and statistical aberrations.
According to the data, tiny New Hampshire consumes the most beer per capita. What gives? New England winters are cold, yes, but other factors are at work here. The Granite State doesn’t tax alcohol, making it a magnet for thirsty residents of Vermont, Maine, Massachusetts, and other neighboring states.
The states drinking the most and least beer might surprise you. To make sense of it all, we broke the data into color-coded maps and straightforward charts.
The States That Drink The Most Beer Per Capita
New Hampshire notwithstanding, Big Sky Country topped this ranking. Residents of Montana, and North and South Dakota, consume nearly 40 gallons of beer per person each year.
The States That Drink The Most Beer Overall
Large states like California and Texas led this category, with hard-living Floridians taking the bronze. Ohio and North Carolina, two relatively sparsely populated states, also cracked the top 10. We wonder if either state’s academic population might be able to shed some light on that.
Ranking The States
| Rank | State | Gallons Per Capita |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | New Hampshire | 40.6 |
| 2 | Montana | 39.4 |
| 3 | North Dakota | 38.3 |
| 4 | South Dakota | 38.2 |
| 5 | Wisconsin | 34.3 |
| 6 | Maine | 33.8 |
| 7 | Nebraska | 33.3 |
| 8 | Nevada | 32.9 |
| 9 | Vermont | 32.8 |
| 10 | Texas | 31.8 |
Looking at things from the perspective of total gallons of beer consumed, the data largely mirrors population ranks.
| Rank | State | Gallons Overall |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | California | 724.9M |
| 2 | Texas | 626.3M |
| 3 | Florida | 423.1M |
| 4 | New York | 327.5M |
| 5 | Illinois | 259.4M |
| 6 | Pennsylvania | 254.1M |
| 7 | Ohio | 234.7M |
| 8 | North Carolina | 188M |
| 8 | Michigan | 186.7M |
| 10 | Georgia | 179.6M |
