Alcohol by Weight vs. Volume

Posted by in Featured, Other Oddities on February 9, 2012 10:25 am / 1 comment

You may have heard the terms alcohol by weight (ABW) or alcohol by volume (ABV).  What is the difference?

Alcohol by weight is the weight of alcohol in a drink divided by the total weight of the drink.  It is expressed as a percentage.  ABW is not used as much as ABV.

Alcohol by volume is describes how much alcohol is in a drink expressed as a percentage.  For example, a Sam Adams Boston Lager is 4.9% ABV.  You will not find the ABV on all bottles or beer menus, but I think you should.  Drinking responsibly means knowing how much alcohol you a drinking.  Bell’s Hopslam Ale is 10% ABV which means you can drink twice as much Boston Lager than Hopslam and still consumed less alcohol.  ABV is also related to the proof in liquor.  An 80 liquor is 40% ABV.

How do ABW and ABV compare?

The ABW of a beer is roughly 4/5 of the ABV.   A beer that is 3.2% ABW is about 4.0 ABV.  This is a rough estimate because the weight of water and alcohol differ.

You may also like:

For the Thanksgiving Table
This year for Thanksgiving I am headed to Beer Bitch's parents.  To put it simply they are not "beer people", although her brother does enjoy a d...
Book Review: The Little Black Book Of Beer
The Little Black Book Of Beer provides a concise, easy to read, review of all the beer basics.  At approximately four by six inches this truly is...
Podcasts for your Phone
The other day I discovered a great app called Stitcher Radio.  Available on iPhone, Android, Palm and Backberry this app is for every phone and p...
Redefining Rare Beer
When you get deep into circles of beer aficionados they want to talk about "Rare Beer" and where they got it.  First thing that comes to mind is ...
 

Tags: , ,

 

0 Comments

  1. Beer Bitch says:
    July 17, 2012 at 5:00 pm

    Agreed!

Post a Comment

You must be logged in to post a comment.