A map of Europe according to whether people prefer beer or wine

Stereotypes are funny because there’s a small silence in between the laughter that implies they are based on a grain of truth.

In the case of alcoholic beverages, the widely held belief is the French drink wine, the Germans drink beer.

Jakub Marian, using data from a study by the World Health Organisation on global alcohol consumption, created two maps that show how much beer and wine we consume country-by-country in litres per year, per capita.

The findings were, well, not entirely surprising:

Beer

As the map shows, the biggest beer-lovers reside in Germany (106), the Czech Republic (149) and Austria (108).

Montenegro comes in at just eleven litres per capita, followed by Albania (20) and Italy (29).

Wine

Wine is popular with the all the usual culprits: Portugal and France lead the wine-drinking with 55 and 53 litres per capita respectively, followed by Andorra (48) Denmark, Slovenia and Croatia (all with 42).

Unsurprisingly, the Germans don't seem too keen on wine, drinking a mere 25 litres per year, and countries Lithuania and Estonia only eleven.

Britons come in at a low 30 for wine, and a comfortable 69 for beer.

The maps may be able to dispel the well-established idea that British people drink far too much: it seems Britons aren't too bad in comparison to the rest of Europe.

Images via: jakubmarian

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