Tavern and drinks calculator
This drinks calculator tells you how much to buy for a tavern, a bar or a party. A tavern fails in one of two ways. Either the beer is gone by ten, or you drive home on Monday with twenty crates nobody paid for. Both are arithmetic errors, and both happen at the purchase, not at the tap.
This calculator splits that into two questions. How much drink does this evening need — that follows from head count, hours and an experience value. And what exactly are you buying for it — that is your list, keg by keg and crate by crate, at your prices.
Then it checks whether the two agree: whether the litres are enough, whether the mix of alcoholic and soft drinks holds, and whether every drink on the board brings in more than it cost to buy.
What gets cooked rather than poured is in the Camp kitchen calculator; whether the evening pays for itself is the Ticket price and break-even calculator.
Total demand
400.0 litres · 4.0 litres per guest
- Alcoholic: 180.0 litres
- Soft drinks: 220.0 litres
What are you buying?
One line per drink. The serving size is what ends up in the glass — 0.5 litres from the keg, 0.33 from a bottle. The quantity is what you buy.
| Drink | Kind | Serving (l) | Quantity | Purchase per unit | Price per unit | Litres | Minimum price | Remove row |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 0.0 | €0.00 | |||||||
| Total | 0 × | 0.0 | €0.00 | |||||
The list stays in this browser and does not leave the device.
Does the list match the demand?
This result does not hold
- Nothing on the drinks list yet. Enter what you plan to pour.
| needed | planned | difference | coverage | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Alcoholic | 180.0 litres | 0.0 litres | −180.0 | 0 % |
| Soft drinks | 220.0 litres | 0.0 litres | −220.0 | 0 % |
Money
- Purchase: €0.00 · Revenue: €0.00
- Gross margin: €0.00 · per unit poured: €0.00
How this is calculated
Demand comes from guests × evenings × serving hours × litres per guest per hour. The event-catering rule of thumb is half a litre per guest per serving hour — 2.5 litres per person across a five-hour evening.
The maths is in litres first and units second. A round of beer and a round of spritzer are not the same volume, and a quantity counted in “drinks” cannot be split between them meaningfully. Serving sizes then turn litres into the number of units you order and carry.
The alcoholic share is usually between 30 and 50 per cent. The rest is water, spritzers and soft drinks, and it is routinely underestimated: nobody thinks of it while planning, and it is the first thing to run out on a hot day.
The minimum sale price divides the purchase by the units sold, not the units bought. Spoilage and breakage are paid for and not poured — charge the purchase price plus a markup and you lose money at every percent of spoilage.
For scale: the City of Munich's Oktoberfest balance for 2025 reports about 6.5 million Maß against about 6.5 million visits — one litre of beer per visit.
- Drink volumes: event-catering rules of thumb (about half a litre per guest per serving hour, 30–50 % of it alcoholic) — not norms
- Order-of-magnitude check: the City of Munich's Oktoberfest balance 2025
- Serving minors: § 9 JuSchG — not modelled here, but binding at the bar
Every figure with its source and review date is in the metrics register — including when it was last checked against the regulation.
Common questions
From event-catering practice, not from a norm — there is none here. The value sits in the metrics register with its source and review date, and you can change it. The presets set it differently depending on what kind of bar it is.
Because spoilage is bought and not sold. Buy 110 units, pour 100, and the purchase has to come back across those 100. At 10 per cent spoilage the floor is about 11 per cent above the purchase price, not on it.
No. Two lines — one alcoholic, one soft — are enough for a sound total. Individual lines pay off when you want to know which drink carries the margin and which only takes up space in the chiller.
No. Serving alcohol generally needs a temporary permit under § 12 GastG, and § 9 JuSchG governs serving minors regardless of anything here. This calculator only says how much to buy.
Organiser briefing
Roughly monthly: funding deadlines, new tools, practical knowledge for organisers. Nothing for sale, unsubscribe any time.
Related tools
- Camp kitchen calculatorQuantities, a shopping list in pack sizes, chilled volume and cost per head — with a hygiene list.
- Ticket price and break-even calculatorWhat a ticket has to cost to carry the event — with free places, batches and a grant share.
- Cost and funding planExpenditure, income and the funding gap in the format funders expect — with ticket pricing and drawdown.
Orientation value. This calculator is no substitute for talking to the licensing authority, the building inspectorate, the fire service or a qualified planner. The German states each adapt the model regulation, so what binds your event is your state's version plus the conditions in your own permit.
Figures as of: 1.0 · last reviewed: 2026-09-18