Montana, North Dakota, Minnesota: Who Drinks The Most Beer?

Beer throughout the northern states is held in high regard, with a first sip of the golden nectar even being seen as a right of passage, but who drinks the most?

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The United States is home to more than 9,000 breweries, so beer enthusiasts can choose from a wide variety of craft and macro brews.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism reports that out of the three beverage categories—wine, spirits, and beer—beer has the highest annual consumption rate, at nearly 6.4 billion gallons, while wine comes in at 931 million and spirits at 635 million.

Not only is beer part of the culture up here, it is also big business, as it is throughout the rest of the nation. In 2019, Anheuser-Busch, the company that owns Budweiser, Corona, and several other popular beers, spent $1.53 billion on advertising in the U.S.

States Ranked by Beer Consumption Per Capita

New Hampshire has the highest beer consumption per capita, but the absence of a beverage tax in the Granite State helps boost beer sales. Surprisingly, the least populous states—Maine, North Dakota, Vermont, and Montana—make up the rest of the top five.  Minnesota falls all the way down to 22nd, and the state that hangs it's hat on binge drinking, Wisconsin, comes in at 10.

Worth noting: the list is broken down into gallons of ethanol, so for the sake of confusion, let's do a little math.

One 12-ounce beer contains approximately 5% ethanol.

Roughly eleven (10.666) 12-ounce beers equal one gallon.

To get one gallon of ethanol, you would need to consume 200 beers.

Ranking the States: Gallons Per Capita

The States That Drink The Most Beer Overall

Naturally, the most populous states in the U.S. consume the most beer by volume. California leads the pack with over 772 million gallons consumed per year. Rounding out the top five states that drink the most beer are Texas, Florida, Pennsylvania, and New York, respectively.