Higher ABV Beers… a problem?

I have run across several articles in the last couple of weeks, in USA Today and on-line, that talk (quite disparagingly) about the ongoing trend for States to pass new laws allowing beer to be sold higher amounts of alcohol in it.  The amount of alcohol in a drink is typically expressed as a percentage of the total volume.  You see this commonly noted as  ABV or “Alcohol By Volume”.  Vermont, where I live, actually just passed a law last year allowing beer to be sold with up to 16% ABV.  Up until that passage beer only up to 8% ABV could be sold in this state.  While I would definitely view this as a victory for the craft brewers in this state and for those of us that enjoy styles of beer that tend have a higher ABV, there are some that would see this as a way to “promote” alcoholism. I even saw an article quote one person as saying “The faster you get drunk and the longer you stay drunk… There’s no evidence that people will drink less, or fewer beers”. I happen to disagree… not just a little, but a lot!

My feeling would be that while high ABV craft beers may contain more alcohol than some beers and other alcoholic beverages, I believe that there are some “controls” in place to make these craft beers the less attractive alternative, if I decided that I wanted or needed to simply drink to get drunk.  So, I decided that I would do a bit of research to see if there was any evidence to support my conviction and would bring into question claims such as the one above. I believe that one of the most significant controls in place is one of price… the cost to purchase the alcoholic beverage of choice.  Purchase price has been used somewhat effectively with other vices to discourage overuse… hard liquor and cigarettes carry high tax levies, which are used partially to help fund our government on the backs of people that “need” or use them and partially as a disincentive to purchase too much of them.   I believe that these high ABV craft beers are being singled out in error.  There are, as we will see, much cheaper ways to simply get drunk…

I happened to visit one of my favorite beer stores yesterday and picked up 7 bottles of craft beer for my future pleasure, so I have accurate price information for some craft beers.  I then pulled some advertising flyers out of the Sunday paper to use for gathering additional information about other alcoholic beverages that are currently for sale.  For comparison purposes, I chose a 30-pack (12 oz. cans) of a nationally-available brand of beer and a nationally-available brand of “boxed” wine (5 liters).  I am no mathematician, but I do use spreadsheets quite a bit for my work at a financial institution.  The table below is an interesting study of the costs associated with the craft beers versus the other readily available sources of alcohol to drink.  For the craft beer ABV I used an average of the 7 bottles I bought yesterday and for the ABV of the wine, I used an average for 4 varieties of wine they sell in boxes that were listed on the producer’s Web site.

As you can easily see, of the three, the craft beers are the most expensive way to purchase alcohol for consumption… more than 3X as expensive as the 30-pack and more than 5X as expensive as the wine for approximately the same total amount of alcohol. Could there be an incentive to drink the higher ABV beer and have to drink less liquid to accomplish the same goal… perhaps, but I would only need to drink 2 cans of the 30-pack to roughly equal the same amount of alcohol as 12 oz of the craft beer or the wine.  Do you have to be careful about drinking these high ABV beverages if you intend to drive… absolutely!

I like the idea that these higher ABV brews are available to me right here in Vermont.  I have been drinking them for years, but had to either buy them in another state or drink them when traveling.  Keep in mind that of the 7 bottles of craft beer I purchased, only one of them would have been available to me prior to last year… ask the store’s owner how he felt about my $50 purchase yesterday.  It is a very good thing, who’s time has arrived.  If people are really concerned about what people will buy to get drunk with… stop selling products that target that… I can still buy the “wino” wines MD 20/20 and Thunderbird, not that I would though… force AB-InBev to sell their 30-packs or Vella to sell their wine boxes for the equivalent of what it costs to purchase the craft beers… it’ll never happen.  If you are truly concerned about alcoholism and if you are not going to try and affect the huge market of the national megabrews or boxed wines, which impact a much broader population of people, then why pick on craft beers (err… AB-InBev has *lawyers*).  Price and quality are powerful influences on the market and are the primary reasons that I think that these “detractors” of high ABV craft beers are just plain wrong.

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