Do you prefer wine or beer? Does the US state you live in prefer wine or beer? And how drunk is your state in general? These are important questions that must be answered.
To find the answer to the question, I considered per capita beer and wine consumption of all states. I found this information in the Brewers almanac from the Beer institute website (yes, this is such a thing. I wonder if they are hiring). The data is from 2011. I normalized per capita beer and wine consumption for each state against the national average so that they can be compared with each other. The beer wine index is calculated by dividing the wine consumption rate with beer consumption rate.
Interesting states
- Washington DC tops the wine charts with per capita wine consumption that’s 2.85 times the national average.
- New Hampshire tops beer charts with per capita beer consumption at 1.57 times the national average. Its wine consumption is also at 2.09 times national average (second in the nation) making it the booziest state in the US.
- Arizona tracks the national average very closely in both wine (1.06x) and beer (1.03x).
- Utah is the least boozy state (yay mormons!) clocking in at 0.6 and 0.35 times the national average in beer and wine respectively.
As a bonus, I whipped up a quick chart comparing beer and spirit (hard liquor) consumption.
