REUTERS

It's been a rough decade for beer.



Americans are drinking less brew. Producers are making less, too. Meanwhile, wine has closed a 20-point favorability gap with beer in the just 20 years. Since the mid-1990s, beer volume has declined by nine percent while and spirits have soared (now even hard cider is staging a comeback after a century-and-a-half slump).

But, despite my previous lamentations, maybe beer doesn't deserve out tears. This is still America's booze, goshdarnit, and Uncle Sam is awful proud of that beer gut. In fact, total U.S. spending on all alcoholic beverages -- both at home and at restaurants and bars -- is up 27 percent since 1980 and even more since the mid-century.



Those numbers are inflation-adjusted, but real incomes have grown since the 1950s, too, so maybe the best way to see our boozy growth is measure alcohol's share of the food budget, which has grown steadily since 1994.

Pull back the lens to the late 19th century, and the story changes slightly. Alcohol spending has been about 15 percent of the food budget since the turn of the century, but the rise of cheap beer in the second half of the 20th century helped contribute to a decline in relative booze spending. It's only recently (since 1994, or so) picked up.

