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Which has more calories: Wine or beer?
Calorie (cal) or kilocalorie (kcal = 1000 cal) is a unit for measuring energy, especially heat. The basic rule is: 1 calorie is the amount of energy required to heat 1 gram of water by 1 degree Celsius - under certain specified conditions such as ambient temperature and pressure. Another unit for this is joule (J) or kilojoule (kJ), where: 1 cal ≈ 4.1868 J and 1 J ≈ 0.239 cal.
The calorie content of a drink such as wine or beer depends essentially on its alcohol content and its residual sugar content. The following applies:
- Wine can have an alcohol content of between 8 and over 15 per cent by volume (vol.-%) and a residual sugar content of almost 0 to over 300 grams per litre. As a representative guideline for a dry wine, an alcohol content of 13 percent by volume and a residual sugar content of 5 grams per litre can be assumed.
- Beer has an average alcohol content of 5 percent by volume and contains no sugar.
Conversion of the alcohol content
First, the alcohol content must be converted from percent by volume to grams. This is done using the following equation (g = gram, ml = millilitre):
Alcohol content (in g) = amount of liquid (in ml) x (vol.-% / 100) x 0.8
Thus, the following alcohol values in grams result for wine and beer, related to the same liquid quantity of 200 ml (a glass of wine = 0.2 l):
Wine:
200 x (13 / 100) x 0.8 = 20.8 g of pure alcohol
Beer:
200 x (5 / 100) x 0.8 = 8 g of pure alcohol
Calculation of the calorie content
If the wine contains 5 grams of residual sugar per litre, 200 ml of this wine contains 1 gram of residual sugar.
To calculate the calorie content, one now relates these alcohol and residual sugar values for wine and beer to the calorific values of alcohol (7.1 kcal/g) and sugar (4 kcal/g):
Wine:
(20.8 g alcohol x 7.1 kcal) + (1 g residual sugar x 4 kcal) = 147.68 kcal + 4 kcal = 151.68 kcal
Beer:
(8 g alcohol x 7.1 kcal) + (0 g residual sugar x 4 kcal) = 56.8 kcal + 0 kcal = 56.8 kcal
With increasing alcohol and/or residual sugar content, the calorie content of wine even increases.
The result is clear: wine has more calories than beer - on average more than two and a half times as many, and wines with residual sweetness and/or high alcohol content are particularly high in calories.