For the last few years wine has been steadily gaining on beer but it looks like that trend has ended. A recent Gallup poll revealed that U.S. adults now prefer beer by a double-digit margin over wine. As you can see from the chart above, wine briefly surged above beer in 2005 but has since slipped further from favor. Beer still is not as widely preferred today as it was in the early 1990s but wine's popularity is now at 31% down from a high of 39%.The poll revealed that it's mostly among Americans between the ages of 30 and 49 that have switched back to referring beer. The drinking preferences of younger adults have remained stable in recent years, with 18- to 29-year-olds still showing a wide preference for beer and drinking liquor more often than wine. The survey doesn't ask where the people drink but I suspect the younger drinkers are indulging in their cocktails out in bars more than the more mature drinkers.

Wine remains the preferred beverage of older drinkers. Sixty-two percent of Americans say they drink alcohol and the average drinker reports having consumed 3.8 alcoholic drinks in the past week. Daily drinking is more common among Americans of higher socioeconomic status: 41% of drinkers with incomes of $75,000 or greater say they have had a drink in the past 24 hours, compared with 36% of middle-income respondents (those with household incomes between $30,000 and $74,999) and just 23% of those residing in lower-income households (with incomes of less than $30,000).