2. The consumption of beer in Spain

In accordance with the data that we presented/displayed in the following pages, the possible relation between beer ingestion and health it is necessary to value it in his appropriate context: the beer is in Spain a drink whose consumption especially social and is bound to playful activities. In any case, the numbers of their consumption in our country are inferiors to those of other European countries enough.

To investigate in this subject entails, therefore, to know what is the dose of beer that statistically ingests a consumer in Spain, since from this data we can value its possible effects on the health that evidently must bear one close relation to the amount that is taken from the product.

To deepen, also, on the percentage of population that ingests great amounts of this drink, and on its consequences, is the logical continuation of the previous point.

Statistical sources on beer consumption

We have resorted to three main sources (and another studies of smaller organization) to try to approximate us to the average amount of beer ingested by the population. Before entering to present/display these data and to discuss them it is necessary to repair in which the statistic, we referred if it to the health, in this case is only an orientative data by these causes:

• Although the consumption talks about the average of all the population, is evident that important sectors of this do not seem a priori consumers of beer, as is the case of the children
• No statistic of the consulted ones reflects the tourist consumption that must be quite important, especially considering that is a consumed product in great proportion outside the home (the hotel trade and restoration)

The fundamental consequence of it is that the preferred drinkers of beer will ingest major amount of the product than the average reflected statistic for the set of the population.

The possible relation between the consumption of beer and the health, therefore, has a great relation with personal habits of consumption and the individual characteristics of the drinkers.

1ª. Source: Association of Brewers of Spain

This source provides data based on simple statistics on apparent consumption of beer based on the population and the production of the same. According to this, the per capita consumption of beer in Spain during 1999 was of 68,76 liters. This number means a daily average of consumption of 188 ml of beer (that is to say: about 7 - 8 g/día of alcohol) with this origin.

1.1 Comparative consumption with Europe

The consumption is in Spain relatively under if it is compared with the one of the inhabitants of other countries of Europe: the communitarian average is in 77.8 liters per capita and year, occupying the Spanish consumer a ninth place in the European classification of beer drinkers. That means that the Spaniards we drink a 46% less than beer than the Germans (127 liters per capita). They are also majors drinkers who we Irish them (124 liters per capita), the Luxemburgish ones (111 liters per capita), the Austrians (108 liters per capita), the Danish (107 liters per capita) and the British (99 liters per capita liters per capita)

In Spain, the beer presents/displays significant differences of consumption according to the geographic location of the consumer:

• Andalusia, Extremadura, Ceuta and Melilla consume 26% of all the sold products, ingesting 80,9 liters per capita annual (222 ml daily of beer).
• In Valencia, Murcia and Albacete were consumed near 75 liters per capita and year (205 ml daily of beer).
• The case of the Canary Islands is remarkable also, perhaps by the lifted tie consumption to the tourist business: liters and year are consumed 74,5 per capita ls (204 ml daily of beer).
• Catalonia and the Balearics (with a 21,5% what represents per capita an average ingestion annual of 68,5 liters) follow next as far as consumption (188 ml daily of beer).
• The consumers of both Castillas as well as those of Cáceres, Teruel and Madrid consumed 20,4% of the sold beer drinking a per capita average of 61 liters (167 ml daily of beer).
• The consumers of Galicia, Asturias, Leon consumed 32 liters per capita annual (88 ml daily of beer), whereas in the Communities of the rest of the north of the country, the consumption as soon as he exceeded the 35 annual liters per capita (97 ml daily of beer).

2ª. Source: The Feeding in Spain. Ministry of Agriculture, Fishes and Feeding

It is a study statistically very made on drink and food consumption in Spain, as much in the home as in the hotel trade and restoration. It collects data from 1987 and the sample of homes in 1997 already reached the 5,400 studied besides 700 establishments of the hotel trade and 200 institutional establishments. It provides as interesting data to us as this: the consumption of beer in Spain is realized in a 77,57% outside the home (that is to say: in the home it is consumed the 22,42% of the drink solely), which reinforces the initial idea of the beer like a drink ligature to the social relation and playful aspects. This contrasts more with “family” drinks as it is the case of the wine:

It is reflected in addition as the beer consumption in the last years in Spain either has stayed stable or has even been falling. In the last year has only undergone a slight ascent:

As far as the physical amounts bought by the consumers, they estan oscillate between the 244,9 daily ml of Andalusia and the 53,6 of Castilla-Leon, with an average number of 148,2 ml daily per capita.

We collect data near offered by the economic Study 1999 of Brewers of Spain considering the different used statistical methodology in both cases. The majors existing differences take place in the data of the regions of the Canary Islands, North, Noroeste and Castilla-Leon.

In any case, the average national of both studies would oscillate between the 148,2 ml and the 188,4 5,9 per capita daily ml that would be equivalent to g and 7,5 alcohol g having supposed alcohol an average content of 5% in volume. That means that it does not fit, at least statistically, to consider to the beer like a remarkable alcohol source in the Spanish feeding.

Indeed, if we considered that to daily ingest an amount of alcohol of up to 35 g (according to some authors) does not represent any danger for the health, then this means that the average ingestion of beer in Spain does not provide beyond 17% to 21% of these 35 recommended alcohol g like maximum number, Obvious, exaggerated individual consumptions can break this consideration turning to this drink into a danger for the health of the immoderate ones.

3ª Source: Survey of familiar budgets

(National Institute of Statistic I.N.E. 1990 - 1991)

It gathers, by means of sampling in homes, the amounts available of foods and drinks daily during one week. It is necessary to emphasize that one solely talks about intradomestic consumption, not being been worth his data for the consumption realized outside the home, at least in his physical amounts. By that reason he is little trustworthy to use his data as reference for our study on consumption levels and health. In any case, it would be necessary to complement his data with those of extradomestic consumption.

4ª Source: Other studies on the consumption of spirits in Spain

Next, we reflected some data coming from Nourishing and Nutritional Surveys realized until the moment in Spain in different Communities. We will make special emphasis in the realized one in the scope of the Community of Madrid in 1994 that offered, in addition, very valuable details on the tendencies observed in the consumption of this product.

4,1 Local consumptions: the alcohol in the example of Madrid

It is necessary to emphasize that in the Nutritional Survey of the Community of Madrid (Aranceta, J. 1) it is observed clearly as the men ingest five times more alcohol than the women in all the groups of age. The men of 35 to 44 years realize the greater alcohol ingestion: 26 g/día diminishing this ingestion as of the 45 years of age. With respect to the women, youngest and those of ages between 45 and 54 years they are the majors drinkers.

We will emphasize that with respect to the injurious effect of the alcohol on the health, the statistic generally considered does not locate indeed to the citizens of Madrid (Aranceta, J. 2) between the great alcohol consumers: (men) have this origin solely 5% or 1,4% (women) of the kcal of its diet against 11% (men) or 3% (women) of the ingested total energy in the study of the Basque Country.

Consumption of beer

Differentiating between the different spirits, the beer is consumed in Madrid in an amount of 96,7 ml daily of average, having taken the men 161 ml and the women 37,9 ml

• Preferences.

The men declare drinkers of beer in a 82% of the cases, taking it 5,13 times per week from average. The women consume, with respect to drinks with alcohol, preferably beer (45%) besides wine (33%), liquors (23%) and vermouth (13%)

The declared ingestions are very similar to the offered ones by the statistics of the MAP and Brewers of Spain for the men, not thus for the women who turn out enough to be inferiors. This it is a data that would agree to clarify in future studies of field: is possible a infradeclaration of the alcohol ingestion, in the case of the women, during the accomplishment of the Nourishing Surveys?

It seems to have a difference in the preferences between the different spirits by sexes. Thus, the women prefer the wine and the men the beer.

Excessive consumption

An important observation, in any case, is the real proportion of the population drinker more than these averages (whose S-value exclusively statistical) that can disfigure real the sanitary problem reflecting very low amounts in this average. Thus, in the present Madrilenian population, the last works of field (C.A.M. 2) aim at that a 54,3% of the adult population are moderate drinker (< 50 ml of alcohol in men and < 30 ml of alcohol in women) and a 40,3% is nondrinker (which is four times more frequent in the women who in the men) with little a 5,4% that is risk drinker (> 50 ml of alcohol for men and > 30 ml of alcohol for women). This drinker of risk abounds more in the ages among 30 to 44 years of age, in the men, and enters the group of 18 29 years, in the women.

He is peculiar to review that the population with university studies drinks more than the population without studies superiors (70,8% of the university men against the 60,2 of the men with studies that have not reached to the primary one).

The average age of beginning to the alcohol consumption regularly is the one of the 18 years, doing it the men to the 17,4 years and the women to the 19 years.

In the young people (population between 15 - 16 years), moderate drinkers declare themselves 56,9% with 15,4% of risk drinkers. Peculiarly, the women in this age are more “drinkers of risk” (16,4%) that the men (14,4%). The alcohol mean consumption is of 137 ml weekly (162 ml the men against the 113 ml of the girls), consuming plus the young people of 16 years that those of 15 years. The preference, as far as the chosen drink, is combined or “cubata” with difference enough. It does not seem, therefore, that the beer consumption can be indicated as responsible main for the cases of chronic alcoholic poisoning not even of being the predominant drink in the landlords of excessive consumption.

Differences in the consumption by sex and age.

There is one differentiates in the consumption by ages and sexes that are perhaps interesting to value in another study counting, of course, with the consumption of spirits in his totality.

He is peculiar, besides coincident, as most of the population does not declare increasing consumptions of this drink, but rather stable consumptions:

These numbers (near 21% of the population she is consuming of tapeo, to average afternoon, and a 15% of mid-morning) reflect with clarity that the beer is a social drink that mainly takes in places public more than a “drink from food” as in certain way can be the wine.