Alcohol Consumption

United Kingdom

The Portman Group released in April 2011, a Fact Sheet stating

The UK’s alcohol consumption has fluctuated considerably over the past 100 years or so. In 1900 it stood at approximately 11 litres of pure alcohol annually per head of population. By 1950 it had dropped to below 4 litres. By 2000 it had risen again to over 8 litres and it currently stands at 8.9 litres.

Changes in the proportion of children in the population may affect the per capita consumption figure; it is therefore useful to measure consumption per adult head of population. This currently stands at 10.7 litres.

This is based on tax receipts, rather than self-reported via consumer surveys. The chose the former since they consider self-reporting to be the less accurate measure (due to bias due to under-reporting for example.)

They also show that average consumption in the UK over 22 years since 1986 has remained fairly static, peaking in 2004/5 and declining since:

They also show that UK consumption is mid-range compared to the rest of Europe: