Results suggest that the frequency of the consumption of beer, the most popular alcoholic beverage among youth, was inversely related to the real price of beer and to the minimum legal age for its purchase and consumption. These negative effects were not found only among infrequent (less than once a week) beer drinkers. Instead, the fractions of youth who consume beer fairly frequently (one to three times weekly) and frequently (four to seven times weekly) fell more in absolute or percentage terms than for infrequent drinkers when price or drinking age rose. Thus, a Federal policy that simultaneously taxes the alcohol in beer and liquor at the same rates and offsets the erosion of the real beer tax since 1951 would have reduced the number of fairly frequent beer drinkers by 24 percent and frequent beer drinkers by 32 percent during the the study period. Similarly, the enactment of a uniform drinking age of 21 years in all States would have reduced the number of fairly frequent drinkers by 11 percent and frequent drinkers by 28 percent. 51 footnotes.