Do High ABV Beers Cost Much More than Lower ABV Craft Beers?
No Significant Relationship Between ABV and Price of Beer
- As is evident from the graphs, there is a weak correlation between the ABV (Alcohol by Volume) of a beer and its price
- The correlation coefficient, which measures the strength of the relationship between the ABV and price per ounce of a beer, is a very weak .129
- There has been talk of the proverbial “$30 Beer”. The price per ounce of a 22 ounce beer at $30 would be about $1.36, which is higher than any of the beers we found for our sample. It is possible that an example of this beer exists, but we did not encounter it in our study.
- Interestingly, the most expensive beer ($1.30 per ounce) was of the relatively low ABV variety; at 14.3% it was actually below the median ABV level for the dataset. And the highest ABV beer at 20% was actually one of the cheaper beers on our list at $.31 per ounce.
- Thus the data indicates that a high ABV is only weakly associated with a higher price and the idea that all high ABV craft beers are expensive is not supported.
- The Colorado Snapshot allows us to compare beers without the confounding factors of different state taxes and regulations to see if our findings were accurate.
- Just like our national findings, Colorado proved that there is not a strong relationship between ABV and price of beer.
The national data was obtained by selecting a sample of 20 high-ABV beers in 8 different states and determining their price and alcohol content using online sources and by calling the breweries directly.
The Colorado data used here was obtained by searching www.beermenus.com for both high and low ABV beers in Denver, Colorado area beer stores. A total of 28 beers were used in the sample, 14 above 12% and 14 below 12%. All prices reflect beer/liquor store pricing.