According to the Beer Institute (BI), recent economic analysis has revealed “that brewing and importing accounted for $223.8 billion in the economic output of the United States — with employees earning nearly $71.2 billion wages and benefits, and generating more than $44 billion taxes. In 2010, the last year tax statistics were available, 45 percent of what every beer drinker paid for a beer went to taxes of some kind, which “makes taxes the most expensive ingredient in your beer,” Joe McClain, president of the BI, stated.

The Beer Institute has just released a national poll of 1,000 likely voters, which found strong opposition to increasing taxes on beer. Nine out of 10 voters in the poll agreed that “raising taxes on beer will mean working class consumers will have to pay more.”

The poll also found that self-identified “beer drinkers” are a larger proportion of the electorate than self-identified supporters of either the Tea Party of Occupy Wall Street movement, and were evenly split between Republican and Democratic parties.

Beer drinkers are also more political than the average likely voter:

• 68 percent of regular beer drinkers say they discuss what’s going on in the presidential campaign with friends or co-workers.
• 66 percent of regular beer drinkers say they are going to be watching the presidential debates, meaning they are more likely to watch presidential debates than watch the World Series or an NFL game.
• 25 percent say they will likely donate or contribute money to a political party, cause, or candidate running for public office.
• 14 percent (or one out of seven) beer drinkers say they will likely volunteer for a political party, cause, or on the campaign for a candidate running this year.