How Many Calories in a Pint of Beer

One of the nation's favourite drinks, an evening pint cannot be under-estimated. Want to know how many calories are in a pint of beer though?

The calories in beer are often grossly under-estimated, especially when considering losing a few pounds or going on a concerted diet plan to lose serious weight!

How Many Calories?

Do you know how many calories in beer there actually are? You may be surprised by the beer calorie values per pint below. Just to be clear here, beer refers to any alcoholic (or not in some cases) drink that has been brewed by fermenting malt with sugar and yeast and then flavoured with hops.

Although taste and flavour vary greatly between beers depending on the grains, additives used and the hops, There is also no distilling, ever, after fermentation.

What Type of Yeast?

Ok so we've got ales and we have lagers - both are beers but one is older and more traditional the other a 'newer' incarnation being over the last 200 years or so.

In essence there's 'ale yeast' and there's 'lager yeast' which determine the type of beer you're making. They also work at different temperatures with the ale yeast being a warmer temperature and the lager yeast being much cooler for fermentation.

So What About the Calories?

The most popular and oldest form of alcoholic beverage, beer is unfortunately not lacking in calorie content. The term beer gut is popular slang for the stomachs of those who have taking their love of beer too far! As a rough guide to beer, the darker the brew the greater the calories.

The same is true of the alcohol content, higher tends to mean more calories. A half pint of beer on average contains approximately one hundred calories though it varies considerably depending on the type of beer. Non-alcoholic beer doesnt necessarily contain less calories though light beers generally do.
 

Recommended Daily Calories

As advised by the NHS Choices website, with a healthy and balanced diet, your average man needs around 10,500kJ (2,500kcal) per day in order to maintain weight. If you exercise, do lots of walking for your job or are in very cold climates then this amount will rise as you will burn off more calories. For instance some strong men eat between 5000 and 8000kcals per day!

For a woman, your daily calorie intake figure is around 8,400kJ (2,000kcal) a day. Again if you workout or have a job that requires exertion then this amount will go up.

Further Reading

NHS CHoices - http://www.nhs.uk/chq/pages/1126.aspx?categoryid=51