For the first time, scientists have assessed the impact of global warming on the world’s most popular beverage, beer.
As temperatures rise, increasingly widespread and severe droughts and heat under climate change will cause considerable disruption to global beer consumption and increase beer prices, according to the analysis in Nature Plants.
During the most severe climate events, it’s likely global beer consumption would decline by 16% (0–41%) (roughly equal to the total annual beer consumption of the United States in 2011), and that beer prices would, on average, double (100–656% of recent prices). Even in less severe extreme events, global beer consumption drops by 4% (0–15%) and prices jump by 15% (0–52%).