Brewing a new map of Europe

Linus Aarnio

Hi, this is Linus from the App team at Datawrapper. Perhaps you’ve heard of the Beer belt, Vodka belt, and Wine belt in Europe? Today we’re taking a look at how relevant they are these days.

Picture a typical person enjoying a drink in England, then one in France, and another one in Finland. Perhaps you pictured the English person sipping a lukewarm ale in some pub, the Finn raising a glass of vodka, and the French having a glass of wine in a sunny cafe. Many of us have stereotypes about the drinking habits of Europeans, especially about what they like to drink.

These stereotypes are not without reason. Different regions of Europe have traditionally had strong preferences for certain types of alcohol. People have called these different regions the Wine belt, Vodka belt, and Beer belt:

These drinking habits formed significant parts of a country’s or region’s culture and traditions. Maybe most famously, millions of people gather in Bavaria to drink beer during Oktoberfest. And Swedes celebrate midsummer by gathering around large tables, singing silly songs, and drinking a type of spirit called snaps.

What people like to drink isn't random – it's usually made from what grows well. Southern Europe, for example, has the perfect climate for growing grapes, which makes them the primary wine producers.

But with increasing globalization, both the availability of different drinks and the culture around them has spread across Europe. The result? A change in preferences. And as you may be aware, an increased beer intake might call for a new belt…

As you can see, people in some countries with traditionally low wine consumption – such as the UK, Sweden, and Norway – have become major wine drinkers. This may be due to the greater availability of (good, but cheap) imported wines.

Many European countries have grown fond(er) of beer. This is likely mostly because of cultural or economic factors: Craft beer became trendy worldwide, and mass production made beer the cheapest way to get drunk. In Vodka belt countries, some believed replacing strong spirits like Vodka with lighter beer could be a good idea to fight alcoholism. This is why the Finnish brewery Olvi was founded – and in Poland, the initially satirical but later serious Polish Beer-Lovers' Party promoted the idea.

And some cultures just don’t change much. The Czech Republic and Germany have stayed loyal to their beer. And France's historically strong wine culture ensures that, despite the growing popularity of beer and spirits, it won’t stop producing and enjoying it’s favorite drink anytime soon.

P.S: If you want to make a map with tooltip charts like these, save yourself some time and use the Datawrapper API. I can recommend the Python library created by Sergio Sánchez to do so – you can see how I created the charts for the map above in this notebook on GitHub. For getting your charts into tooltips, check out this article in our Academy.

It will be interesting to see what this map looks like in another 60 years. You won’t have to wait that long for other visualizations though! Come back next week when my colleague Ceren will present a new Weekly Chart.

---

Linus Aarnio

(he/him) is a full-stack developer on Datawraper's app team. He likes to find simple solutions to hard problems. When not at work, he enjoys the outdoors in various forms. During the summer months, he can be found hiking, paddling, or riding his gravel bike. In the winter, he enjoys both cross-country and downhill skiing. Linus lives in Åland.

Liked this article? Maybe your friends will too:

Twitter Facebook