Tyler Cowen over at Marginal Revolution points readers to an interesting map showing the geography of alcohol consumption across Europe. As the website’s authors note, there seems to be three distinct alcohol belts that correspond with the agricultural production possibilities of each region. They also note a cultural factor that determines whether people primarily drink beer, hard liquor, or wine.
"Das Boot" at Bier Garten in Albany
It reminded me of an interesting book I picked up at the airport a few years ago titled Ambitious Brew: The Story of American Beer. In contrast to Europe, the drinking habits of Americans tend to be entirely culturally determined. I didn’t realize it, but whiskey was America’s drink of choice at the birth of the Republic. It wasn’t until a large wave of German immigration hit the U.S. that beer began to become popular. As Ogle points out, there was an early prejudice against beer as it was associated with German immigrants. She goes on to argue that the rise of prohibition can partly be explained by anti-German sentiment stemming from Word War I. Today, beer has a seat next to baseball and apple pie as one of the core symbols of America. As you can see in the picture to the right, I’ve done my own ethnographic research on the subject as well.
The whole book is thoroughly interesting and easy to read. I highly recommend it to sociologists, economists, and beer loves alike.
- Josh McCabe
geography is part of it, but with low transportation costs comparative advantage might’ve ameliorated this absent political distortion. see Nye’s Wine, War, and Taxes (or the econtalk discussion of the same).