In The US, North Dakotan’s Drink The Most Beer – 43.6 Gallons Per Person

That malty elixir is toasted annually on September 28th on National Drink Beer Day.  As the Oktoberfest season comes to an end, this day is a great reminder to enjoy the world’s most popular adult beverage.

Beer lovers have more selection than ever before in the ale and lager market. An explosion in the craft beer industry keeps the competition and the flavors robust, churning out new flavors seasonally.  Beer connoisseurs quench their thirst with flavors drastically different from their grandfather’s beers.  Root beer to raspberry, caramel, and hints of herbs all tickle the palate when it comes to artisanal beers.

• The first modern American IPA was Anchor Liberty Ale
• Beer cans debuted way back in 1933
• Schlitz invented the brown bottle. Despite the fact that you’re more likely to see Schlitz in a can out in the wild than a bottle, back in 1911, things were different.
• North Dakota drinks more beer than anyone. Each resident drank 43.6 gallons of the stuff in 2013, according to 24/7 Wall Street. New Hampshire and Montana came in second and third place, respectively.
• The “33” on Rolling Rock bottles has no known meaning.  Rolling Rock itself presents 11 different theories as to why the 33 is there. Among them: the “founding members of the brewery bet $33 on Horse 33 and won,” or the fact that the beer is brewed at 33 degrees. We think it might be because the Latrobe brewery was bought in 1933.
• The world’s best-selling beer is… Snow?. Snow is the name of a beer brewed for the Chinese market, and it’s cheap: 49 cents for a can, according to Quartz. Perhaps not surprisingly, since there are over 1 billion people in China, it’s also the world’s largest beer market by volume.
• America’s largest craft brewery is Yuengling.
• People were drinking beer 5,000 years ago. For the people/Sumerians lucky enough to live in Mesopotamia in 10,000 BCE (it’s located around where Iraq is today), there was beer to drink! None of the beer included hops, which means it probably didn’t taste that good, but according to LiveScience.com, people had their pick of eight different barley-based beers, and eight wheat-based.
• Coined in the early 1900s, the word “alcoholiday” means leisure time spent drinking.
• Cenosillicaphobia is the fear of an empty glass.
• Beer is the third-most popular drink on Earth, after water and tea
• Beer is as old as human history. Beer brewing and drinking predate written language.
• In 2017, the average U.S. citizen over 21 consumed 26.9 gallons of beer. However, the United States doesn’t even make the top 10 in terms of overall beer drinking.
• The Czech Republic consumes the most beer per capita of any country in the world, and China consumes the most overall.
• The earliest evidence of beer making was found in western Iran, dating back to 3,500 BC.
• Ancient Sumerians made beer from bread and malt.
• Brewers began adding hops to beer in the 9th century AD. Today, nearly all beer is brewed with hops, which adds a zesty, bitter flavor to beer and acts as a preservative.
• The strongest beer in the world is “Snake Venom,” brewed by Scottish brewery Brewmeister. It is 67.5% alcohol by volume (abv). For comparison, most vodka is 40% abv, with beers typically between 3% and 10% abv.
• The oldest continuously operating brewery in the world is located at Weihenstephan Abbey in Bavaria, Germany. The Benedictine monks at Weihenstephan began brewing beer in 1040 AD.

Sources:

National Day Calendar

Thrillist

Mental Floss

Fact Retriever