Beer: carbon footprint per kg (about one litre)

Beer is mostly water, and its footprint per litre is modest in absolute terms — the live figure is below. But it is not the low end of the drinks in Agribalyse: every juice, soft drink, plant drink and bottled water in the database sits below it, and beer lands just above wine and the spirits. Fermenting grain costs more than mixing syrup, and it shows.

Which is exactly why the container matters. Glass is heavy to make and heavy to move, and a bottle can carry a meaningful share of a beer's total footprint. Agribalyse's beer figures cover the drink; if you want to weigh the packaging, our materials pages cover glass and aluminium directly.

Worked example

Five litres — about nine pints: 5 × 1.35 = 6.8 kgCO2e.

Measure your own with the free food calculator.

Frequently asked questions

Is draught beer lower-carbon than bottled?

Kegs are reused many times, so per litre they carry far less packaging than single-use glass. The beer inside is the same.

Do stronger beers have higher footprints?

Not in Agribalyse — it publishes alcohol-free through to strong at the identical figure, so the database draws no distinction by strength. Packaging and transport are where real differences between two beers come from.

Related factors

• Red wine
• White wine
• Bread