What do Hungarians drink: wine or beer?

Most people think of Hungary as the place with lots of good wine and pálinka. But if we take a look at what Hungarian people are used to buying, then I have to disappoint you. It seems that Hungarians prefer beer to wine, and mostly cheap beer at that, portfolio.hu reports.

If drinking was a sport, Hungary would win a lot of competitions. So what do we like to drink? Foreigners coming to visit Hungary always learn about our wine and palinka. But does that mean that we usually drink those two?

We are very lucky, considering the geographical location of our country since we can produce quality wines. Which means that we have a wine culture, it is part of our traditions, although there were some years when producing quality wine was almost impossible. 

If we look up countries where the population likes to drink wine, we will see that those countries are usually also good at producing wine. Of course, there are some exceptions, like everywhere else. So do Hungarians drink wine? Sure. But do we drink more beer than wine? Interestingly, yes. 

Statistics says that two thirds of our alcohol consumption is made up of beer. And it is not a new trend either, the percentage has roughly stayed the same since the turn of the millennium. 

Just last year 6.2 million hectoliters of beer were sold in Hungary, which is 100,000 hectoliters more than the year before. So it is not enough that beer is the market leader in Hungary, sales are still growing. 

According to a previous survey, the financial crisis was one of the reasons the Hungarians chose cheap beer instead of wine. 

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Beer manufacturers have been urging consumers to drink responsibly for years, but no one can be sure of how much that actually matters. According to WHO, Hungarians are drinking way too much, especially the men. On average, Hungarians drink more than 1 litre of pure alcohol every month. It is said that Hungary is the eighth most heavy-drinking nation in the world.

Source: portfolio.hu