How many calories are in your beer?

[homebrewdad]

I put together a little utilitiy to calculate this for you. If you know the OG and FG of a brew, it gives you pretty exact numbers by calculating the calories from alchol, then combining those with the calories from carbohydrates.

If you don't know those numbers (say, you have a commercial brew in your hands), it will give you a pretty close estimate (using a range of 1.010 - 1.017 as a FG range).

Finally, you can adjust the serving size... in case you want to know how many calories are in that bomber or six pack you just drank.

If you have feedback or suggestions, please send them my way. Otherwise, I hope that you find this useful.

Beer Calorie Calculator

 

[pericles]

Why would you want to do this? A solid 7.3% of the point of homebrewing is that calories don't count if you brew your own.

Seriously though, nice job man.

 

[brewmaster89]

Great link! Although I will not want to check it very often. haha

 

[homebrewdad]

Heh, I won't personally use this except for academic reasons... but I thought it would be a nifty little thing to have.

Glad you liked it.

I also think that the "calories not counting if you brew your own" concept is an excellent idea.

 

[SYV_Brewer]

This is Great!! Thanks. Would you mind posting the formulae you used? I have built my own brewing spreadsheet in Excel that I can use for No-Sparge 3 step mashes (my preferred method) or sparge brewing. I also use it to calc my mash efficiency, attenuation, and ABV. I'd love to be able to add calories to the spreadsheet (sadly, I must lose 4 lbs) this year so I am <horror> counting calories. I want to know how long on the treadmill I have to run for each beer).

If you could please let me know the formulae, I would be most appreciative.

 

[Nightshade]

I have done the calculations and average between 200-250 per 12oz beer, planning to change that with the gallon brewing setup :evil:

 

[BobbiLynn]

Hmm... I never thought of this question before, but pretty awesome that you made a calculator utility for it.

 

[homebrewdad]

This is Great!! Thanks. Would you mind posting the formulae you used? I have built my own brewing spreadsheet in Excel that I can use for No-Sparge 3 step mashes (my preferred method) or sparge brewing. I also use it to calc my mash efficiency, attenuation, and ABV. I'd love to be able to add calories to the spreadsheet (sadly, I must lose 4 lbs) this year so I am <horror> counting calories. I want to know how long on the treadmill I have to run for each beer).

If you could please let me know the formulae, I would be most appreciative.

Sure thing! The formulae are findable with some time and Google, it's not like this is some trade secret. That being said, the calculator is a lot easier to use, IMHO.

Note that these are the calculations for homebrew - assuming you know your OG and FG. The other version throws a few assumptions in for these numbers to give an approximate calorie count, whereas knowing the OG and FG makes it very accurate.

Assuming a twelve ounce serving... (if using another size, multiply the result by your serving size, then divide by twelve).


Total calories = ( (1881.22 * FG) * (OG - FG) / (1.775 - OG) ) + ( 3550 * FG * ( (.1808 * OG) + (.8192 * FG) - 1.004) )

Obviously, substitute in your gravity numbers above. Be careful on your parenthesis and order of operations.

 

[aiptasia]

My beer is apparently liquid cheescake.

 

[ktblunden]

Beersmith calculates this for me and honestly I can't say I've ever actually looked at it. I'm a little afraid to know.

 

[strambo]

I've glanced at the Beersmith calcs and based on the few times I've looked up commercial beers out of curiosity (to include big ones like Trippels), it seems pretty spot on. Close enough if you were dieting and actually counting calories. ~6% ABV beers are around 200/12 oz, Imperials will push or exceed 300.

Edit: for my latest APA 1.061 OG and 1.010 FG your calc says 203. Beersmith says 203.2, so they are both probably spot on. 271 per pint...

 

[homebrewdad]

I've glanced at the Beersmith calcs and based on the few times I've looked up commercial beers out of curiosity (to include big ones like Trippels), it seems pretty spot on. Close enough if you were dieting and actually counting calories. ~6% ABV beers are around 200/12 oz, Imperials will push or exceed 300.

Edit: for my latest APA 1.061 OG and 1.010 FG your calc says 203. Beersmith says 203.2, so they are both probably spot on. 271 per pint...

I round to the nearest calorie, so that likely explains the .2 difference.

 

[onthekeg]

I don't count my beers. Will that work?

 

[BobbiLynn]

I don't count my beers. Will that work?

Just try to round off to the nearest beer.

 

[davekippen]

I plugged the formula into my spreadsheet and the results differ from what the web version says. For example, my Pale is 1.055 and 1.012. The web version calculates it at 183 but in the spreadsheet its 170? Not a huge difference but I thought they would be the same.

 

[homebrewdad]

I plugged the formula into my spreadsheet and the results differ from what the web version says. For example, my Pale is 1.055 and 1.012. The web version calculates it at 183 but in the spreadsheet its 170? Not a huge difference but I thought they would be the same.

Hmm. My cals on the site agree with Beersmith, and agree with some longhand calcs I have done. Perhaps you have the formula set up wrong in the spreadsheet?

 

[kallen]

You guys all do it the hard way; I just run a sample through the analyzer at work. Doesn't everyone work in the brewing department of a major brewery?

My Blonde ended up the lowest at 160 cal/12oz, while my Russian Imperial Stout was a whopping 380 cal/12oz.

 

[nukebrewer]

The only suggestion I have is to break down the calories from alcohol and the calories from carbs. This would greatly help out someone who is trying to cut back on carbs but still wants to enjoy a brew or two.

 

[davekippen]

Hmm. My cals on the site agree with Beersmith, and agree with some longhand calcs I have done. Perhaps you have the formula set up wrong in the spreadsheet?

This is what I have in Excel giving me the 170

= ( (1881.22 * 1.012) * (1.055- 1.012) / (1.775 - 1.055) ) + ( 3550 * 1.012* ( (0.1808 * 1.055) + (0.8192 * 1.012) - 1.004) )

 

[homebrewdad]

This is what I have in Excel giving me the 170

= ( (1881.22 * 1.012) * (1.055- 1.012) / (1.775 - 1.055) ) + ( 3550 * 1.012* ( (0.1808 * 1.055) + (0.8192 * 1.012) - 1.004) )

That looks like it is set up properly. Let me look at the calculator script and make sure that I didn't copy something incorrectly here.

 

[Clonefan94]

No wonder my hour long morning workout sessions aren't doing anything for me. Basically I'm working out every morning just to have a couple of beers that day.

Nice work, but I think I'd have almost rather been left in the dark on this.

 

[homebrewdad]

No wonder my hour long morning workout sessions aren't doing anything for me. Basically I'm working out every morning just to have a couple of beers that day.

Nice work, but I think I'd have almost rather been left in the dark on this.

Sorry. You're not the first person to come to this realization.

 

[MartinSTE]

I have a pilsner that started at 1052 OG, and ended up at 1020 FG.
Your calculator tells me my beer has a whopping 1735777 calories?
Or does it mean to say 173.5777
This is for 12 ounces.

 

[SlitheryDee]

I have a pilsner that started at 1052 OG, and ended up at 1020 FG.
Your calculator tells me my beer has a whopping 1735777 calories?
Or does it mean to say 173.5777
This is for 12 ounces.

I have no idea how you made the calculator say that. I've tried every permutation of 1.052 and 1.020 that I can think of.

1.052/1.020 = 177 calories

1052/1020 = 3710688743 calories

10.52/10.20 = 334510 calories

105.2/102.0 = 36775515 calories

10.052/10.020 = 320969 calories

152/120 = 53110408 calories

What the hell did you put in???

 

[seatazzz]

I have to agree with clonefan...I recently started riding my bike partway to work (busing part of the way) to start working off the "beer baby" I've apparently conceived. It appears I'm exercising just enough to keep at the same weight. Arrgh.

 

[Sadu]

I have dropped about 30lb in the last 17 weeks without really cutting back beer. I'll have a pint a night on average during the week and maybe 3-4 pints on Friday / Saturday. To offset this I work out 5 times a week and pretty much gave up bread and as much sugar as possible. My nutritionist isn't super concerned about beer intake, he knows its important to me so I make other cuts instead. Another 30lb to go still.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

I have a pilsner that started at 1052 OG, and ended up at 1020 FG.
Your calculator tells me my beer has a whopping 1735777 calories?
Or does it mean to say 173.5777
This is for 12 ounces.

Did you use 1052 and 1020, or 1.052 and 1.020? We know what you mean if you used the former, the calculator probably doesn't.

 

[Gnomebrewer]

This is a very useful calculator....it tells me how much food I have to stop eating so that I can keep drinking