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Business Daily

The cost of a can of beer in the US

Business Daily

BBC

News, Business

4.4796 Ratings

🗓️ 9 June 2025

⏱️ 17 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

A Pilsner, an American Pale Ale, American IPA or cold lager. However you like your beer – it's part of life in the US and usually comes out on top as the most popular drink in the country.

In this programme, we look at how President Donald Trump’s tariffs policy is impacting the product; tracing the elements of a can of beer in the United States - from the hops to the bar.

Could this all-American experience be affected by a desire to Make America Great Again? Or will US businesses involved in beer manufacturing and packaging benefit?

If you would like to get in touch with the show, please email: [email protected]

Presented and produced by Hannah Bewley

(Picture: Young woman working in the production line in a beer factory. Credit: Getty Images)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

A Pilsner, an American pale ale, American IPA or a cold lager.

0:09.2

However you like your beer, it's part of life in the United States and usually comes out on top as the most popular alcoholic drink in the country.

0:17.3

I'm Hannah Buley and in today's business daily, I'm looking at how US President Donald Trump's tariff policy is impacting a can of beer.

0:25.9

Could this all-American experience be affected by a desire to make America great again?

0:31.0

Or will US businesses involved in beer manufacturing and packaging benefit?

0:35.5

That's all coming up on Business Daily from the BBC World Service.

0:44.5

So what am I looking at?

0:46.5

All right. So right in front of us is our brew house, so our brewing system.

0:52.6

It's a three-vessel, 20-barrel system. Before we meet the suppliers of

0:56.4

raw ingredients for beer, reporter Kizzy Cox goes straight to the end product. She's at Talea

1:01.8

Brewery and Williamsburg, New York City, to speak to co-owner Leanne Darland about what goes into her

1:07.1

beer. The ingredients that go into a can of beer are, one, the aluminum that make up the can,

1:14.4

and then the liquid itself is a combination of water, grain, hops, and yeast. There is a lot of

1:21.5

overhead in beer production, so obviously the labor. Utilities are incredibly high, both the gas we need to heat,

1:30.8

the beer, and the water. We have, you know, rent in New York City, which is not cheap. We've

1:38.2

definitely noticed an increase in the cost of our raw materials for a while now. Definitely

1:43.2

just the increase in the cost of shipping,

1:45.0

but we are anticipating an increase in the cost of aluminum and our grain, because a decent

1:52.2

amount of our grain comes from Canada, and our aluminum, you know, we're a very small player

1:57.7

and across the aluminum commodity in the U.S. But that's definitely not all

2:04.0

coming from within the U.S. The aluminum and grain that goes into a can of beer represents

2:09.4

about 20% of the cost of that can of beer. So an increase in those inputs is absolutely going to

...

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