Some good numbers to win a bar bet

Q: What state has the highest per-capita sales of beer?

A: New Hampshire.

The Granite State, which has 17 breweries, last year sold an average of 32.7 gallons of beer per drinking-age resident, equal to about 350 12-ounce cans. That number comes from the Beer Institute. The overall rate for the rest of the country was 20.7 gallons.

New Hampshire folks don't have such frills as a sales tax to keep them from buying freely, and that fact helps boost the numbers since many people from neighboring states make it a practice to cross the border in search of lower-priced alcohol.

That absence of tax also has made New Hampshire the highest per-capita user of alcohol, with the equivalent of 63.1% of the population imbibing compared to the overall U.S. rate of 51.4%. But, once again, that can be misleading since so much of the purchasing and consumption is by out-of-staters.

The rest of the top five in sales per capita:

2 -- Montana, 30.5 gallons
3 -- North Dakota, 29.8 gallons
4 -- South Dakota, 27.5 gallons
5 -- Nevada at 26.8 gallons

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