Gold Medal Winners: London 2012 Olympic Beers

The 2012 Olympics are now in full swing, with athletes from 204 countries around the world facing off in 300 events. These amazing competitors will give their all to be named an Olympic Gold Medalist, but there is one facet of training/celebrating that I haven’t heard much about – the beer!

It is a beverage enjoyed around the world, although some places more than others, and when I started hearing about all the different countries that were taking part in these Games I started to ask myself, “I wonder what they drink there…?”

Not all countries have good stats on this kind of thing, but after searching for the most popular/favorite/most produced/most consumed/most imported beer in each of the countries competing in this years games, I think I have a pretty good idea of what is powering these athletes!

The answers that I came up with weren’t necessarily the beers that I had originally though of for some of the countries… Have a look and see what you think – leave a comment if you think any of them should be changed!

A few notes and examples:

Canada
Forget Molson Canadian and Labbat’s Blue – Our largest national brewery that is actually still Canadian is Moosehead!

Ireland
When you think of the beer on the Emerald Isle, you most likely think Guinness, but it’s not the most popular! All the guys that used to “put in a session” at the pub and drink pint after pint of Irish Stout have long since passed their prime and Lager has moved to the top of the People’s Choice list. Harp (owned by Diageo, the same parent company as Guinness) is actually the “favorite” beer of the Irish. When I lived there, it was common for the first pint of the night to be a Guinness, but then everyone switched to lager and cider.

Prohibition
As terrible as it is to think, there are many countries that have a ban on alcohol, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that there is no beer-culture. For example, because of popular demand Iran has a brewery specializing in non-alcoholic beer! Other nations depend on a a black market of  imported goods to suit their needs.

How many of the “local brews” have you tried, or do you even recognize?

Do you happen to know anything about the nations I missed out on?
Maybe you have visited and had a pint while you were there.

Do you disagree, or have a suggestion for any of the picks that I made?
Let me know in the comments!