By Jay Brooks
I saw a slideshow recently on a genealogy website that took data from the Consumer Price Index from the Bureau of Labor Statistics and showed the price of a pint beginning in 1952 through last year, along with what that price would be in today’s money, in other words adjusted for inflation. I took it from a slideshow and turned into a table so you could more easily see the changes over time. Perhaps most surprising is that the average price of a beer is one-third less now than it was 64 years ago.
According to the data, the adjusted price for a pint peaked in the mid-1950s, 1956-57 to be specific. After that, the price has been coming down slowly but surely (with a few blips here and there) ever since. Part of that is undoubtedly efficiencies in both brewing and distribution. The on-and-off price wars that the big brewers engaged in over the last few decades must certainly have played a roll, as it kept prices artificially low across the board. At any rate, it’s interesting to see the prices all laid out like this over six decades. I’m sure others will see a lot more in the data, too.
