How many calories are in that Charlotte beer you’re drinking?

It’s not impossible to figure out or at least estimate how many calories are in your happy hour drink. You can Google it, for starters, and learn that there are 64 calories in a shot of vodka, 125 calories in a glass of red wine and 150 calories in a beer.

Some of the big guys in the alcohol game even share their exact brand-specific nutrition facts online. Budweiser, for example, has 145 calories per 12 fl oz.

There are debates about the health implications of not displaying calorie content for alcoholic beverages. Those in favor of labeling argue that unlabeled alcohol leads us to underestimate its contribution to our total daily consumption.

Would you drink six 150-calorie sodas in a row? For a lot of people, that’s worth at least a pause for consideration. Would you drink six 150-calorie beers in a row? For a lot of people, that’s just the pre-game.

When it comes to local craft beer, you’d be hard pressed to find a brewery that shares precise nutrition information for its products.

“It’s fairly expensive for a small company to have the tests done,” said Josh Patton of Wooden Robot, “and since we aren’t required to display nutrition facts, we have decided not to incur the added expense at this time.”

For a ballpark estimate the calorie load of your favorite local beer, you could identify a comparable national product and accept that nutrient profile as close enough to what you’re consuming.

But for craft beer fans who wouldn’t dare compare their favorite local brew to a national brand, there’s another way — math and science.

The formula for calculating calories in beer is:

calories per 12 oz beer = [(6.9 x ABW) + 4.0 (RE – 0.1) x FG x 3.55

Here, ABW is the alcohol by weight, RE is the real extract and FG is the final gravity. It’s highly unlikely most brewers will share those numbers with you so this equation really only works for homebrewers who want to nerd out over their own creations.

But there is one readily available number that can also be used to calculate calories in your favorite local beers: ABV, alcohol by volume.

According to this break down, you can get a reasonable calorie estimate by multiplying a beer’s ABV by 2.5 to 3.0 (lower for lighter beers, higher for heavier beers) and then multiplying by the number of ounces being consumed.

Or, to keep it dead simple, just enter the ABV into this online calculator and let it do the math for you: Beer Calorie Calculator.

I ran some Charlotte beers through the calculator, taking a look at their lowest, highest and mid-range beers in terms of total calories.

Here’s how it shook out…

NoDa Brewing

Par 4 – 4.0% ABV, 133 – 157 calories per 12 oz

Coco Loco – 6.2% ABV, 190- 215 calories per 12 oz

Hop Drop & Roll – 7.2% ABV, 217 – 242 calories per 12 oz

Unknown Brewing

Pre Game – 4.4% ABV, 143 – 167 calories per 12 oz

Vehopciraptor – 9.9% ABV, 291 – 317 calories per 12 oz

Krash the Kremlin – 12.5% ABV – 366 – 394 calories per 12 oz

Wooden Robot

Heidi Ho Neighborino – 4.7% ABV, 151 – 175 calories per 12 oz

Sweet Tater Pie – 8.0% ABV, 238 – 264 calories per 12 oz

Godless Killing Machine – 10% ABV, 294 – 320 calories per 12 oz

Triple C

Light Rail Pale Ale – 4.5% ABV, 146 – 170 calories per 12 oz

3C IPA – 6.2% ABV, 190 – 215 calories per 12 oz

Baby Maker – 8.5% ABV, 252 – 278 calories per 12 oz

Free Range Brewing

I Knead You – 4.6% ABV, 148 – 172 calories per 12 oz

Two Wild and Crazy Guys – 7.7% ABV, 230 – 255 calories per 12 oz

La Leche Grande – 9.0% ABV, 266 – 292 calories per 12 oz

Header photo via Facebook