"UK drinkers pay FIVE times more tax on beer than the Germans — who consume twice as much booze." The Sun, 22 September 2011

Sun readers looking forward to an end-of-week pint might have been disappointed to learn this week that they pay more tax on their tipple than drinkers on the continent.

According to the paper, despite the fact that Germans knocked back twice as much beer as the oft-maligned Brits, UK drinkers still shelled out five times as much in taxes. So should we think twice before hitting the pub this evening?

Analysis 

The figures used by the Sun came from a report published on behalf of the Brewers of Europe entitled 'The Contribution made by Beer to the European Economy'. The research was compiled by Ernst & Young and Regioplan. 

The report breaks the forms of revenue the government receives as a result of beer consumption and production into a number of categories. The Sun article appears to be referring solely to excise duty, not to VAT or income related revenue. 

Excise duty in particular was dealt with in a separate report by the Brewers of Europe, which found that the UK does indeed have one of the highest excise duties per hectalitre in the EU, as the table below demonstrates:

In terms of the relative burden on UK and German drinkers, The Sun's claims are backed up by these figures. While Germans paid €712 million (£624 million) in 2010, the UK's beer-lovers paid €3.7 billion (£3.2 billion), a little under five times as much. 

The story is a little different if we include VAT however. Germany paid €3.5 billion in 2010 in VAT on beer, while the UK paid slightly less at €2.8 billion. If we add together VAT and excise duty the numbers are slightly less shocking. This changes the figures to €6.5 billion for the UK and €4.2 billion, for Germany. As the two main taxes on consumption of alcohol this gives us a somewhat more accurate picture than focusing on excise duty alone.

 But what about the claims that the Germans drink twice as much beer as the UK?

 In the year 2011 Germany collectively worked its way through 87,872,000 hectalitres of beer. The UK on the other hand drank 45,873,000, or roughly half as much.

 Although Germany as country might consume twice as much beer in terms of pints drunk (or even halb liters), if we look at the issue in terms of per capita it is actually only about a third more than the UK. Germans consumed on average 107 litres of beer per person. In the UK this figure is 73.7.

Conclusion

 The claim that the UK pays five times as much tax on beer than Germany, despite the fact that they drank twice as much is broadly correct.

In terms of excise duty, UK beer-drinkers do stump up five times as much as their German equivalents, although this ratio falls dramatically if VAT is factored into the equation.

Similarly, while twice as many pints are sunk in Germany than the UK, if we account for population, the Germans only consume 45 per cent more per head.