KegWorks tackles the question “Is beer really cheaper than gas?” with a rather elaborate analysis and infographic.
Made me think, “Hey, I’ve got a photo and a different data set.” So from this post in 2008 (when gas prices had ratcheted up during the summer and were beginning to fall, everywhere, along with the U.S. economy):
The photo was taken at a small grocery store in Wertheim, Germany (at the junction of the Main and Tauber rivers, and with terrific castle ruins). Beer was .66 euro (or less) for .5L. That’s 1.32 euro if you bought two (in other words a liter). The cheapest we’d seen gas for at the time was 1.39 for a liter of diesel (the cheapest gas in Germany, as opposed to the silly flip-flop in the U.S. where diesel costs more).
Here in the UK beer, even cheap beer is significantly more expensive than petrol and likely to remain so.
However, we are constantly hearing from government and mass media that beer is too cheap, whereas petrol is too expensive.
In Ontario gas is hovering between 1.25 and 1.30 a litre which equals, say, 4.50 a US gallon. It also equals 2.50 to 2.60 a six pack (2 litres) in a land where non-market pricing of beer creates most six packs at around 12.00. You can get a little less than 2 litres of something called “Yankee Jim” for 7.05 on sale at the guvment store but that’s about as close as I can get gas to beer.
You can easily buy Oettinger for 29 euro cents in most German supermarkets. It is not even that bad. So one liter 2 times cheaper than gas in Germany.
Things are even worse here (or better, depends on how you see it). If you choose wisely, you can buy three 0.5l bottles of beer for the price of a litre of diesel, four, if you got for the cheaper stuff, and at some pubs you could have two pints of desítka for the price of a litre of diesel. One more reason not to have a driver’s licence…
I don’t think the comparison of beer and fuel is a fair one: there are limited quantities of fuel left and its prices are influenced by politics and financial shenanigans.
Several years ago, in a supermarket in Prague, I found that bottled beer was cheaper than bottled water. Now, that is a fair comparison.
Mike – Bottled water was cheaper than bottled beer in the store in the picture.
Stan – I’ve been in drinks shops in Bavaria as recently as last summer where the beer was STILL cheaper than water. OTOH, the water may have tasted better.