No matter what country you go to a great conversation starter are always the beer prices. You’ll get an answer like “Yeah, it’s not what it used to be”, and so on. Since most governments still see taxes on alcoholic beverages as a great way to pay for their endless amount of well catered meetings we’re all pretty much getting screwed. Unless your a teetotaler, in which case you’re probably lost on this website, or producing your own beers, wine or moonshine, which is obviously awesome. We looked up the data of all the countries in the European Union and made a ranking of how much they each make on total alcohol taxes. A first safe conclusion might be: if people in the United Kingdom would all start making their own alcohol, their government would have a serious cash problem.

Now the EU lets every country free to choose just how much it wants to overcharge its drinking population. And we don’t want to bother you with too many details on how much each country makes on beer, wine, spirits and all other kinds of beverages that contain alcohol, but for those who are interested, . Our ranking is just based on absolute numbers, or the total sum of all alcohol taxes per country in 2016. Of course not every country has the same amount of habitants or the same average monthly income, so keep that in mind when you draw your conclusions.

In our eyes the most remarkable thing about the ranking was the huge gap between the United Kingdom and the runners up France and Germany. Especially since these two countries have a larger population than the islanders. And as one fifth of the Brittish tax collections on alcohol go straight to the European Union this may justify a Brexit for some people. But if you want to take a closer look at that yourself as well, . Please feel free to share your questions, opinions and conclusions below.

EU countries ranked by tax receipts (in millions of Euros) from alcoholic beverages:
1. United Kingdom 12.796,57
2. France 3.288,93
3. Germany 3.165,21
4. Poland 2.629,18
5. Sweden 1.456,33
6. Italy 1.327,74
7. Finland 1.243,8
8. Ireland 1.207,47
9. Spain 1.201,84
10. Netherlands 1.147,22
11. Belgium 726,79
12. Denmark 563,35
13. Greece 459,57
14. Czech Republic 450,3
15. Austria 360,8
16. Hungary 325,25
17. Slovakia 270,77
18. Lithuania 250,46
19. Estonia 235,65
20. Romania 225,41
21. Portugal 193,06
22. Latvia 169,6
23. Bulgaria 151,29
24. Croatia 116,14
25. Slovenia 109,33
26. Luxemburg 50,44
27. Cyprus 36,13
28. Malta 17,82

Micky Bumbar