How can the same amount of beer and hard liquor have such different alcohol %. What exactly is different?
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You can think of most beers, wines, and liquors as basically a mixture of water (H20) and ethanol (CH3CH2OH). There’s some other stuff in there too (sugar, especially) but we’re just going to round it off and assume it’s water.
So when a beer, for instance, is 5% alcohol by volume (ABV) that basically means it is 95% water and 5% alcohol. If the beer is 12 fl oz (~350 ml) that means that there is 0.6 fl oz of ethanol and 11.4 fl oz of water.
But if you poured a 12 fl oz glass of 80 proof (40% ABV) vodka, there would be 4.8 fl oz of alcohol and 7.2 fl oz of water.
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