How Much A 6-Pack Of Beer Cost In 1980 Vs Now

These days, if you want to drown your sorrows over the rising cost of everything, you aren't going to find much solace in a 6-pack of beer, but looking at the price in 1980 might give you a little relief. Like so much food and drink, the price of beer has jumped since 2020, with the average cost per can rising 27% in just six years. However, this is actually slightly less than food and drink inflation overall, which has risen 29%. That may be little solace to beer fans who find themselves shelling out $10 or more for even popular American macrobrew beers, but at least it hasn't been as bad as the ground beef for the burgers you're having with your beer. And that slightly lower rate of inflation actually tracks over time, since according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the cost of a 6-pack of beer in 1980 was $3.40.

That may seem like a great deal, but adjusted for inflation, that's the equivalent of paying $13.30 today. While some craft beer 6-packs cost that much or more, that's not what most people are paying today for the beer they were buying in 1980. Back then, craft beer was virtually non-existent, as the microbreweries that powered the industry weren't even legalized until 1978. In the late '70s, the two biggest beers were Budweiser and Miller High Life, and the top ten beers, all of which were cheap domestics, controlled 70% of the entire American beer market. Today, craft beer makes up more than 13% of beer sales in the U.S. That also means that the $3.40 average in 1980 wasn't being pulled up by the higher prices of craft beer outliers.

So how does that $13.30 6-pack compare to today? There isn't one definitive source of 6-pack prices for current years, so we checked individual prices across states with beer prices that are around average. We used the two most popular beers from 1980, Budweiser and Miller, as a comparison, but used Miller Lite for current-day prices because it is more widely available than High Life. The locations we checked were at national retailers and grocery stores in Wisconsin, Colorado, Texas, and Georgia, and then we averaged the prices across states.

On average, a 6-pack of Miller Lite today costs $8.24, while Budweiser costs $8.50. This is in line with the average price of $14.99 for 12-packs of each brand, which comes from data that is more widely available. Compare that to the current day $13.30 equivalent of beer prices in 1980, and that is a pretty huge drop of around 37%.

So why does it feel like beer has gotten so much more expensive? Well, it has over the last ten years. While beer prices have lagged behind overall food inflation, the average 12-pack cost has still jumped over 40% since 2015. It's just that, relative to prices from the '80s, beer was even cheaper back in the 2010s. Our growing taste for craft beer has also impacted that perception, as craft beer prices have inflated faster than the most popular macrobrew beers, and craft beer 6-packs routinely cost over $12, much more than Bud or Miller. But if you are drinking a classic American beer brand, you are doing it cheaper than in 1980.