Australia: 1-in-8 Australians consume beer, wine and another alcohol

New research from Roy Morgan shows that two-thirds of Australians aged 18+ (66.3%) consume alcohol in an average four weeks and over 1-in-8 Australians (12.8%) consume not only beer and wine, but also at least one of spirits, RTDs, liqueurs or cider in an average four weeks.

For the two-thirds of Australians that do drink alcohol on a regular basis wine is the most popular choice with 41.3% of Australians drinking wine in an average four weeks compared to 37.6% that drink beer. In addition 37.6%, drink another type of alcohol including at least one of spirits, cider, RTDs or liqueurs.

However, despite the 1-in-8 Australians that drink beer, wine and something else, overall incidence of alcohol consumption has continued to decline gently over the last five years from 69.8% in mid-2014.

All major categories of alcoholic drinks showed decline in incidence over this period although deeper analysis within gender and age groups reveals some types of alcohol are growing in popularity for different segments of the population.

These are some of the latest findings derived from the Roy Morgan’s ‘Alcohol Consumption Currency Report June 2019’ which is based on in-depth interviews conducted face-to-face with over 50,000 consumers per annum in their homes, including detailed questioning of over 15,000 regarding their alcoholic drinking habits.

The most popular combination of two alcoholic beverages between these three categories of alcoholic drinks is for the 9.6% who drink both wine and another type of alcohol (not including beer) in an average four weeks.

Although wine is the most popular alcoholic drink in terms of the number of drinkers, beer is clearly the top in terms of volume (based on glasses). The following chart shows that beer accounts for 45.3% of the volume of alcoholic drinks consumed more than wine (29.2%) and spirits (13.2%) combined.

Other forms of alcohol comprise the remaining 12.5% of alcohol consumption volume including RTD (5.8%), cider (3.5%), liqueurs (1.2%), fortified wine (0.9%) and other alcohol (1%).

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