Australia: Australians’ alcohol tastes are turning away from beer

Australia’s reputation as a beer-drinking nation has taken a dive with figures showing alcohol tastes are turning to wines and spirits. The Australian Bureau of Statistics said June 23 Australians drank their way through 455.9 million litres of wine in 2005, or about 28.1 litres a person.

Spirits consumption also rose during the same period.

And ready-to-drink pre-mixed spirit consumption also increased to 15 million litres, up from 13.6 million litres the previous year. Among other spirits, consumption rose slightly to 19.5 million litres. Australians are now drinking an average 2.12 litres of spirits a year, up from 2.06 litres in 2004.


But it is a different story for beer. Total beer consumption fell to 1.7 billion litres, down from 1.8 billion litres.

While low strength beer consumption stayed steady around 229 million litres, consumption of mid-strength beer dropped 3.2 per cent to 241 million litres. And consumption of full strength beer ebbed to under 1.3 billion litres.

In terms of pure alcohol, the bureau said there had been a slight increase, to 160 million litres - or 9.83 litres per person.

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