A graph of this would be interesting

Beer Drinking and What It Says About China’s Economy

Excerpt:

The average Chinese adult drank about a third of a bottle of beer in 1961, less than the average resident of Iran. By 1991, consumption topped a bottle a year, but still lagged behind 117 other nations, according to the World Health Organization.

By 2007, the Chinese were drinking almost a six pack a year. While that’s still considerably less per capita than in beer gardens like the Czech Republic (where the average adult drinks about 24 beers a year) it’s enough to make China by far the world’s largest market for beer.

That story can be repeated for any number of consumer goods, of course. But what’s interesting about beer is that the trend is not likely to last. A paper by two economists at the University of Leuven, in beer-loving Belgium, finds that people drink more beer as their incomes rise, until they make about $22,000 a year.

Then they start drinking less beer.

Comment: Interesting. By the way ... not an investment for everyone but beer stocks and liquor stocks always seem to do well. Eg TAP and DEO