There's really not much we can say here. It's beer. Everyone likes it. Mmm yummy beer. It's the world's most widely consumed alcoholic beverage, and is the third most popular drink after water and tea (we want to know who picks water as their favourite! It's nothing... compared to delicious beer, or the world's very best drinks "hot chocolate" and "coca-cola"). Beer is produced by brewing and fermenting sugars which often come from malted cereals. Malted barley and wheat are the most commonly used. Beer is flavoured with hops, which adds the distinctive bitterness, and also acts as a preservative. More than 133 billion litres of beer are sold annually, and in 2006 a total global revenue of £147.7 billion was produced!