Our relationship with drinking has definitely changed a fair bit over the last few years. More people than ever are taking up Dry January when New Year’s Day rolls around, and plenty more have seriously cut back on their alcohol intake entirely. Both sober travel and sober clubbing are on the rise.
According to some stats from the World Health Organisation, which is (obvs) a big advocate for us cutting back at least a little on the booze, consumption in Europe has been on the decline for quite some time.
The information on alcohol consumption is based on the sales of pure alcohol (and does not include domestic drinking or illegal production) to those over the age of 15, and that’s actually been on the decline since 1980. We used to drink around 12.7 litres per person, but that was down to 9.8 litres by 2020 – a 23 percent decrease.
Drinking in Ireland and Lithuania has gone down the most between 2010 and 2020 (a 2.1 litre decrease), closely followed by Spain and Greece (2 litre decrease) and then by the Netherlands, France, Cyprus and Finland (1.5 litre decrease).
However, a handful of countries are drinking more than before. The average consumption in Germany is the highest at 10.6 litres per person, but the following countries have experienced the following increases: Latvia (2.3 litres), Bulgaria (1.4 litres), Malta (1.1 litres), Romania and Poland (both 1 litre).
25 European countries drink less, and 11 countries drink more. Despite that disparity though, Europe is still the region in the world with the highest overall consumption; the average European drinks 9.5 litres of alcohol per year. To put that into perspective, that’s 190 litres of beer, or 80 litres of wine.
More on drinking (or not) at Time Out
If you’re not planning on going teetotal just yet, there are plenty of destinations across Europe and the world where a pint won’t cost you £8 – yet – and plenty of amazing bars to sample cutting-edge mixology in jaw-dropping settings.
However, if sober nights out have become more your thing, why not brush up on the best cities in the world for nightlife? You can just get drunk off the impeccable vibes instead.
Did you see that you will soon have to start paying to visit the EU?
Plus: These are the best budget-friendly autumn getaways.
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