(Image credit: Suzy Hazelwood)

With 2022 soon to be a memory, it’s as good a time as any to question our past behavior…Things like which countries drank the most beer and could we have done better?

On Dec 23 Kirin Holdings Company (the second biggest brewer in Japan with huge international reach) published its annual beer consumption report which includes data from 170 countries and regions worldwide.

Kirin Holdings, which in addition to owning several breweries also works in the food, pharmaceutical, and health industries, has been monitoring worldwide beer consumption since 1975.

And it bases the rankings on annual questionnaires sent to several brewers associations worldwide as well as recent beer industry reports. The report then ranked consumption volume by country and region.

Some good news, global beer consumption increased for the first time in two years. That’s an encouraging turn in a post-COVID economy for mega-brewers as well for the craft beer segment.

Global beer consumption was up 188 billion gallons, an upswing of 4% and we’d like to thank all of you for doing your part.

China deserves a special shout-out. That country is crazy for beer. It once again held the title of #1 beer consumers in the world, a position it has proudly owned for 19 consecutive years. That’s 20 percent of all the beer drinking on the planet and a 5 percent increase year-over-year!

The United States showed strong too. In 2021 US beer lovers consumed a staggering 6.3 billion gallons of the beloved suds.

And props to the Czech Republic as well. A much smaller country than China or the US, they drank the most beer per-capita having held that honor for a commanding 29 consecutive years.

Kirin Holdings, was probably not happy to see that beer consumption in Japan had dropped to eighth, its first decrease in 15 years. However India proved to be back in the beer drinking game having rebounded significantly last year, up from 24^th in 2020 to 14^th in 2021, in what clearly a team effort.

And here’s the top 25 beer drinking countries, ranked by volume…