How Many Beers Are In A Single Bottle Of Wine?

Nothing says "let's party" like a good math problem. Let's say you're enjoying a movie with your partner. They like classic wines, and maybe you like beer. It was a tearjerker, and they've gone ahead and finished the whole bottle in one sitting. No judgment — you've topped off a solid pyramid of beer cans yourself. In your drunken stupor, you're wondering: Which of you drank more? Is a bottle of wine equal to a six-pack of beer?

Wine most commonly comes in a 750-milliliter bottle, whereas beer comes in different sizes. Let's say you've been drinking 12-ounce cans of domestic beer. To make science teachers everywhere proud, we're going to translate ounces into milliliters so we stay consistent. 12 ounces is roughly 355 milliliters, which means that when purely looking at volume, there are 2.11 12-ounce cans in a single bottle of wine.

What matters more is the alcohol by volume (ABV). Let's say the wine is a common 14% ABV, and your beer is a typical 5% ABV. For a 750-milliliter bottle of wine, that means you are drinking 105 milliliters of alcohol. In 750 milliliters of beer, you are getting 37.5 milliliters of alcohol. Crunching the numbers, that means you would need to drink 5.9 cans of beer to equal the amount of alcohol in a bottle of wine. And there you have it, if you drink a six-pack of domestic beer, you are ingesting just over a bottle of wine's worth of alcohol.

Let's say you're in it for the craft. You enjoy showing up to dive bars and talking about how domestics taste like the backwash of your family's pet donkey. No way you're going to be caught dead drinking that nonsense. It's a bit harsh, but we respect your right to have an opinion.

It's wintertime, and you're drinking a thick stout — though don't look at the color of the beer for its alcohol content — sitting pretty at 6.5% ABV. That's a hefty pour, but you can handle it. In the equation, everything is the same in the first half if you're still drinking a 12-ounce can. We're going to keep the wine at 14% ABV to avoid adding too many variables, so there are still 105 milliliters of alcohol in the wine.

For the beer, 750 milliliters of 6.5% ABV will give you 48.75 milliliters of alcohol. You would need to drink about 4.5 cans of stout to reach the equivalent alcohol content of a wine bottle. Not a huge leap down from the 5.9 cans of domestic, but the difference is more than an entire can. Keep in mind that everyone digests alcohol at different rates depending on their gender, food intake, and body type. Just because you both drink the same amount of alcohol doesn't mean you will have the same blood alcohol content.

While it's easy to simply finish off a bottle once it's open, you might want to consider the general suggested consumption of alcohol. The U.S. dietary guidelines for alcohol suggest no more than one alcoholic drink per day for women and no more than two for men. But how does that translate when not all drinks are created equal? Ultimately, a 12-ounce 5% beer or about 5 fluid ounces of 12% wine are roughly equal. That means women should stick to one beer or a small glass of wine, while men could have two of either to prevent health risks associated with heavier drinking.

If you prefer liquor drinks or aperitifs, there are guidelines for them as well. Aperitifs tend to have around 24% alcohol, so you should stick to roughly two to three fluid ounces. Liquor and other drinks with 40% alcohol should be kept to about an ounce and a half per drink to avoid over-consumption.