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5Adults of the appropriate age occasionally indulge in alcoholic beverages, which are a multi-billion dollar business. However, spending is often more pronounced in dining places, where people have been gradually charged more for libations. For more information, click here.
Prices slowly increasing
”What America Spends On” is a series done by NPR that showed more Americans are spending increased amounts on alcohol in bars and restaurants. This viewed the last thirty years comparing 1982 to today.
In 1982, the Cold War still existed, spandex was in vogue and yuppies were driving BMWs. Americans were also aware of the mark up on beer, wine and spirits in dining places and bars, as only 24 percent of alcohol spending was in those places and 76 percent was spent in stores.
Today, spandex is seldom seen and yuppies still drive BMWs. However, we are spending more in dining places and bars, as 40 percent of alcohol spending takes place in those locations, compared to 60 percent in stores. However, much of it is to do with a 79 percent increase in bar and diner costs; store prices dropped 39 percent. If anything, that suggests more volume is bought in shops.
What do you spend on?
The biggest change was what the country indulges in. In 1982, 48.9 percent of spending was on beer, followed by spirits at 34.6 percent and wine at 16.2 percent. However, spirits have fallen to 12.6 percent of spending and wine has ballooned to 39.7 percent of spending on libations for 2012.
The wine industry in America is in the midst of a gilded age. In 2011, according to the San Francisco Chronicle, there were 329.7 million cases of wine shipped around the country, which marked a milestone as the United States, for the first time, eclipsed France as the chief wine-drinking nation, as that country went through 320.6 million cases.
In 2010, the American wine industry was a $30 billion industry. In that year, 241.8 million cases were sent from a lot of different vineyards. Millennials are willing to spend more on costly bottles and are drinking more. California by itself produced 61 percent of that wine, which means California is the state where the majority of the wine comes from.
Most drink beer
However, the preferred drink of the country is still beer. In 2012, according to NPR, beer still made up 47.7 percent of sales, barely changing from 1982. Overall beer production, according to BusinessInsider, has fallen from just under 204 million gallons in 1990 to just under 192 million in 2011, though that's part of an overall trend of Americans consuming less as a whole.
Beer drinkers are slowly gravitating toward brews from Main Street instead of Wall Street, as craft breweries are proliferating. In 2011, an 11 percent growth of the number of craft breweries was recorded over 2010. There were 1,989 craft breweries in operation, with 250 brand new breweries opening and 37 closing. Craft brewers produced almost 11.5 million barrels, a 5.7 percent share of the market, and made $8.7 billion in revenue.
Sources:
NPR
Francisco Chronicle
Business Insider
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