Beer can add up a bit, can’t it?

A new survey out from a Seattle-based research and analytic company, known as Survey Analytics, says that the average American beer buyer spends about $1,200 per year on the tasty brew. The highest total in the survey was $10,000. For reference, if you figure that a pint is about $5, that’s an average of 240 pints per year (while the $10,000 Kid bought the equivalent of 2,000 pints, or 5.5 pints per day).

How do you stack up? I try not to add up my own extracurricular research for beer blogging – I fear it exceeds the average and I just don’t want to know.

Other interesting findings included the fact that Budweiser is simultaneously America’s most favorite and least favorite beer: 51 percent said favorite, 46 percent said least. Other favs included Coors (13 percent), Corona (12 percent) and Stella Artois (10 percent).

Also, the survey found that cost is a relatively modest driver of beer buying habits: 32 percent said they went with the company that has the best ads (sigh); 29 percent said they were motivated by where the beer was brewed; and 22 percent said they picked based on the style of beer.

The company didn’t make the complete data set available, so it’s a little hard to know what to make of this beyond the novelty value, but it is clearly not just a mass-produced beer survey – California topped the survey in the “which state makes best craft beer” category, with 19 percent. Also, 14 percent of respondents said they had brewed beer at home and 68 percent expressed an interest in taking classes to learn.

The company said the survey talked with 300 adults in 42 states, who took the survey electronically. An interesting demographic tidbit is that 56 percent of the respondents were female.

– Sean Scully