Canadian beer vs. American beer: The alcohol content battle

by Beer




Where does this beer myth come from?

American beer used to use alcohol by weight to denote the alcohol content in beer.  Some areas still use alcohol by weight, but there has been an effort to convert to alcohol by volume in the past decade.  Alcohol by volume is a better metric.

Alcohol by volume is the percentage of the liquid which is alcohol.  For example if you had 100 ml which contained 4 ml of alcohol, the alcohol by volume is 4%.  Alcohol by weight measures the mass of a substance in a mixture as a percentage of the mass of the entire mixture.  So if you had 100 grams which contained 4 grams of alcohol, the alcohol by weight is 4%.  It looks like the two are the same, but they are not.

You get into trouble comparing ABV and ABW because is alcohol weighs less than water.  Alcohol is less dense, about 4/5 as dense as water.  The density of alcohol is 0.79336.  Alcohol by volume is the alcohol by weight times the density.

ABV = ABW * 0.79336

This means if your beer is 4% ABV, the beer is only 3.17% ABW.  Since Canadian beers use ABV and American beers were using ABW, many thought Canadian beers were stronger.  The myth persists to this day, even though American beers are starting to use the same metric.

Another reason is you are allowed to market the alcohol strength in Canada, but not in the United States.  You cannot advertise “this beer will get you drunk” due to alcohol laws, nor can you promote your brand based on the alcohol content.  Different states even have different regulations on how strong the beer can be.  These help contribute to the “Canadian beer is stronger” myth.

Is Canadian beer stronger than American beer? No.

The beer alcohol content list

I’m sure there are many out there who still are not convinced.  I’ve written an alcohol myth list where I stated Canadian beers are not stronger than American beers, but I still had many people write me to tell me I was wrong.

So here’s the list of beers and their alcohol content.  Most of the beers in the world vary from 4% to 6% ABV, with almost all beers having an alcohol content close to 5%.  There are beers which go as high as 25.6% ABV (Samuel Adams Utopias – American).  For this list, I’m focusing just on the macro beers.  Obviously anything from Avery is going to be stronger than Labatts.  Craft beers all tend to be slightly higher in alcohol.

American Beers

Beer

ABV

Budweiser 5.0
Bud Dry 5.0
Bud Light 4.2
Bud Ice 5.5
Bud Ice Light 4.1
Bud Select 4.3
Busch 4.6
Busch Light 4.2
Busch Ice 5.9
Coors Original 5.0
Coors Light 4.5
Coors Extra Gold 5.0
Keystone 4.4
Keystone Light 4.2
Keystone Ice 5.9
Old Milwaukee 5.0
Pabst 5.0

Canadian Beers

Beer

ABV

Carling Black Label 4.7
Grizzly Canadian Lager 5.4
Hamilton 4.5
Labatt Blue 5.0
Labatt Blue Light 4.0
Labatt Bleue Dry 6.1
Labatt Extra Dry 5.5
Labatt 50 5.0
Labatt Ice 5.6
Labatt Sterling 4.0
Labatt Wildcat 4.9
Moosehead 5.0
Molson Canadian 5.0
Molson Dry 5.5
Molson Export 4.9
O’Keefe Canadian Beer 4.9
Old Style Pilsner 5.0

Don’t miss anything

New articles are out regularly and new videos come out every week. Make sure you subscribe!

Credits and Links

  • none

Comments

comments

DJ Spiess

DJ Spiess

Beer buddy

I live in Denver, Colorado. This blog is everything about beer, wine, cider, mead and other spirits.
I am a avid homebrewer and winemaker. I’ve been making my own beer and wine for many years. I started making beer when I was in college (mostly because the drinking age in the United States is 21). My first few beers were horrible. The beers are much better now, and I often supply my neighborhood with free beer! It is a great hobby!