Earlier today we looked at the countries who drank the most American wine in 2013. Now we turn our attention to beer! Let’s compare and contrast the stats:
- The UK was the top wine importer of American wine in 2013. It ranked as the 10th highest beer importer. While the British don’t grow much wine of their own, they do brew beer, which helps explain the gap.
- The top importer of American beer in 2013 was Mexico, at over 40 million gallons. Mexico was the 14th largest drinker of American wine.
- How many countries made the top 10 for both beer and wine? Just two: Canada and the UK.
- America exported wine to 125 countries in 2013. We exported beer to 107 different countries.
While the commercial beer industry in the US is much older than our wine industry, the wines and beers we produce help explain why we export more wine (by volume and value) than beer. There were thousands of breweries in late 19th century America. That number had dwindled down to 44 in 1979, as ‘macro’ brews (think Budweiser) took over the market. With the explosion of craft beers in the past two decades, the face (and taste) of American beer is changing (for the better!). As those craft breweries expand, or are bought by the global beer conglomerates like InBev, we wouldn’t be surprised to see American beer exports surge in the coming years. As for wine, we didn’t grow truly great stuff until the early 1970s in any meaningful volume. Since then the quality of American wine has grown tremendously, as has the amount of wine we produce.
P.S. – Whether you love beer or wine, we’ve got advice on what to drink!
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