An article was published on Thrillist recently titled “Where’s the Cheapest Beer in the World?” One of our New Year’s resolutions was to travel more, so we initially thought this was an awesome list that may just encourage us to buy a plane ticket and leave the country for a while. However, after reading the top five countries for cheap beer, we think we’re going to stick with staying in the good ol’ U.S. of A. As much as we’d love to throw back a brew in Vietnam, Cambodia, or Ethiopia, we don’t necessarily consider those countries to be hot spots for a sweet vacation (sorry).
So, where in the United States can you find the cheapest beer? We did a little digging and here’s what we came up with:
According to a report from the Beer Institute, taxes are the single most expensive ingredient in beer, costing more than labor and raw materials combined. Those taxes get passed down to us in the cost of the beer…yay. The Tax Foundation, a non-partisan, non-profit research organization that monitors tax policy at the federal, state, and local levels, posted an awesomely detailed map of “State Beer Excise Tax Rates (Dollars Per Gallon)” and these rates are as of January 1, 2013. Things have probably changed a little bit numbers-wise since these rates are from a year ago, but the general idea is still there. Lower excise tax rate = (usually) lower beer price.
The 10 states with the lowest beer excise tax rate:
10. New Jersey
9. Indiana
8. Rhode Island
7. Massachusetts
6. Oregon
5. Colorado (tie)
4. Pennsylvania (tie)
3. Wisconsin
2. Missouri
1. Wyoming
Hmm, Wyoming is also the state with the smallest population so… more beer for you? Yeah, not the most exciting state but you can be sure there will be plenty of cheap beer with your name all over it.