Do we drink differently at different times of the year?

So who loves a beer then?

Well according to the latest research from Roy Morgan Research, that is really only the case in the warmer months in Australia.

It seems that we prefer red wines and ports / sherries etc in the colder months.

The results show that this is not a new thing but has been happening for the last decade at least. On average 37.6 percent of Australians drink beer in the July to September quarter compared with 43 percent in the warm quarter of January to March.

Andrew Price, General Manager of Consumer Products at Roy Morgan Research, said; “Unlike beer-drinkers in the northern hemisphere, Australians do not tend to see beer as a winter beverage. So it’s no surprise that the proportion of us drinking it during the cool July-September quarter falls, only to peak again in the warm January-March quarter every year. Of course, this doesn’t mean that so-called ‘winter beers’ aren’t available here, but it does suggest that marketers wishing to overcome our resistance to (or at least, inability to process) the concept have their work cut out for them.”

Of particular interest in the research is that the proportion of us drinking hot chocolate increases significantly in that colder quarter. There is a potential product there for some enterprising business – a type of alcoholic hot chocolate.

The research has also shown that the number of Australians over 18 years who drink alcohol within four weeks of the study has decreased from 72 percent in 2006 to 68 percent.