Beer Glass Styles

May 28, 2010

Okay, so you’re visiting The Brew Club and you’re reading this article, that means that hopefully you have more than a passing interest in the brewers’ art, and more particularly in what the brewers produce.

The correct beer glasses can help enhance your drinking pleasure, and they tend to be designed to accentuate a beer’s finer qualities – the aroma of a Belgian Ale, the dense head of a Wheat Beer, the golden colour of a Pilsner.

Accordingly, I offer the following gallery of  beer glass styles for your consideration, followed with a brief description.  Click on any image below to ‘enbigify’ for closer examination!

You can also help us fill in the beer glass style gallery (3 slots) by uploading a picture of your own favorite beer glass to the wall of our Facebook page!  If we get enough samples, we’ll add 3 submitted pictures to round-out our gallery below!  So go ahead and upload a beer glass picture and let us know what’s special about it! It might get immortalized here too!

.

Artois Chalice – this is a relatively new development by InBev’s Artois brewery in Belgium. The larger body is designed to keep the beer cooler for longer, while an etched ’sparkler’ (or nucleating device) in the bottom of the glass helps maintain the beer’s head.

.

Something for the ladies – okay, so we have learned to accept that ladies tend not to drink beer, at least not to the extent that the fellas do. To reflect that trend some brewers produce more feminine, ‘girly’ glasses to encourage them a little.  This is the Veltins interpretation of a half pint pilsner glass.

.

Trappist Beer ‘chalice’ - each brewery in Belgium has its own unique glass and bartenders are keen to ensure that they serve the correct beer in the correct glass. The body of the glass will hold a full measure of beer yet still capture enough of the deep hoppy aroma. The chalice pictured is from La Trappe.

.

Pilsner Glass – Let’s be honest, beyond a solid hit of Saaz Hops you’re not going to get a complex aromatic nose from a pilsner, so you might as well enjoy the golden glow of a good pale lager.  Traditional Pilsner glasses are tall, slim inverted cones with a vistigial stem. The glass pictured are from Staropramen.

.

‘Pint Pot’ – another traditional glass, and there are a number of different versions of this around – often known as ‘jugs’.  The theory is that the handle allows for the main body of the glass to stay cooler, but in all honesty the amount of heat transmitted by five fingers through to a pint of reasonably cool liquid must be marginal.

.

Wheat Beer (Weizen) glass – like ‘abbey’ and ‘trappist’ ales, German brewers produce their own distinctive glasses, these are designed to hold a full half litre of wheat beer, plus a large foaming, aromatic head.  The distinctive shape and narrower top focuses the distinctive fruity, yeasty aroma, you should really get a kick of orange peel and coriander.

.

Leather Tankard – if you’re barbecuing in the garden (yard) you might not want to take a glass out with you.  Okay so there are plastic options out there, but if you want to do it with a touch of style, how about an authentic leather tankard?  These were common drinking vessels in the days before mass produced (and affordable) glassware, and were sometimes known as ‘boots’.

The design of my tankard can be traced back to the time of Admiral Nelson and the Battle of Trafalgar, the wide base designed to prevent spillage – now widely adopted in coffee mugs.  Leather tankards are lined with shipmakers pitch to waterproof the tankard and, surprisingly, don’t affect the taste of the beer.  Fill your boots boys!

.

Tasting Glass – this one was produced for the All Beer Experience set, It’s very close to the ideal shape described by Michael Jackson, and only holds a half pint, ideal if you’re doing a tasting with friends. If you can’t fine one of these, then a large red-wine goblet will work equally well. I usually do at least one tasting of each beer in this glass, for consistency.

.

Silver Tankard – Sometimes you just have to really push the boat out, and a special beer deserves a special ‘glass’.  Well this one was loaned to me for this photograph by my mate Alan, whom you might recall from my article about Staropramen.  This particular ‘glass’ holds a full (English) pint, is solid sterling silver, and is hallmarked 1742 – the same year that Samuel Whitbread first went into partnership with Thomas Shewell, brewing London Porter from Sherwell’s ‘Goat’ brewery – there’s that goat beer reference again!

In this case the tankard contains Timothy Taylor’s Landlord, but thinking about it, I might have a bottle of Porter on the shelf somewhere!

.

Tulip Glass - much like the tasting glass above, these are designed to accentuate the nose of aromatic ales.  As such, it’s similar to a Trappist Chalice but the neck is slightly narrowed to exploit those complex malt aromas.  Some Belgian ’scotch’ ales have developed this further from a ‘Tulip’ into a ‘Thistle’ but the principle is the same.

.

Pint Glass - sometimes you want to just drink, rather than savour, and oversized glasses are ideal for this, allowing room for a comfortable head while still holding a full pint.  Of course pint pots come in several shapes… ‘the glass’ and the ‘jug’ as they’re known here in Blighty. As we saw earlier, a  jug has a handle, and the most famous shape has a dimpled pattern. These have fallen into disuse in recent years as the thicker glass and the handle make them potentially more lethal weapons in the event of trouble.

Within the upright glass, a straight glass without any shoulders is often known as a ‘Yorkshire Straight’. Of course the wider the diameter at the top of the glass, the more potential profit an unscrupulous landlord can make by serving excessively foamy heads. This particular selection are from recent Great British Beer Festivals (I think I have around twenty GBBF glasses in my collection) and have lines to ensure that a full English pint (20 fl.oz.) of liquid is served.

.

Ceramics – as with the Leather Boot and the Silver Tankard – these predate the mass production of glass.  Prior to the industrial revolution, most drinks would be served in opaque drinking vessels, and so drinkers were unaware of how bright or cloudy their ale might be.  Joseph Grolle’s invention of Pilsner Urquell in 1842 coincided with the availability of affordable beer glasses and was seen as a important factor in the rapid rise to popularity of bright, pale lagers across Europe.

I aquired these particular ceramics on various trips to India, hence the Elephant handle.

.

Beer Steins – What would any respectable collection of beer vessels be without mention of the Beer Stein!  Similar to the ceramic mugs above, steins are typically made of stoneware, with the main difference being the hinged lid.  Its interesting to note that the lid was a sanitary measure enacted after the ‘Black Death’ to keep flies out of one’s beer!  Styles have changes over the years of course and beer steins can be purchased in thousands of styles nowadays.  But, the stoneware container with hinged lid is what sets the beer stein apart.

.

As always, this is a personal list and the beer glasses are taken from my personal collection, it doesn’t pretend to be definitive.  Please feel free to post your comments and suggest any other beer vessels I’ve missed, or let us know if you have any favorite beer glasses that you are proud of!

Better yet, why not upload a picture of your favorite beer drinking glass to our Facebook page?  If we get enough responses, (can we get 3 pictures???) we’ll fill in the missing 3 images on our gallery with 3 of your pictures!   Why not share!

Posted in Other Stuff