Beer Q&A: How many calories are in my favorite beer?

Aug. 17, 2018 12:29 PM PT

Q: How many calories are in my favorite beer?

A: That depends on your favorite beer. At popsugar.com, you’ll find the calories of 12-ounce pours of a few dozen popular beers. (None from San Diego, by the way.) There’s a huge range. One serving of Sierra Nevada Bigfoot Barleywine (330 calories) equals an entire six-pack of Budweiser Select 55 (55 calories).

Generally, a beer’s caloric load — and, to a degree, the intensity of its flavors — rises or falls with its alcohol content. Bud 55, for instance, has a near-beer-ish 2.4 percent alcohol by volume, while Bigfoot boasts a potent 9.6 percent.

Read more from Peter Rowe’s weekly beer column here.

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Peter Rowe

Peter joined The San Diego Union-Tribune in 1984. A native Californian who grew up in Encinitas, Rowe is a graduate of UC Berkeley and Northwestern University. He is past president of the National Society of Newspaper Columnists and a former Fulbright scholar. He has won a few journalism awards, but would trade them all for a chance to avenge his 1994 “Jeopardy!” loss. Married to a terrific woman who has saved him from errors in writing and in life, he has three sons. At the U-T, Rowe writes profiles and features and is even paid to review beers, which hardly seems fair.