A Favourite Glass

Used in pubs but still a goody!

The first piece of advise I often give when doing a beer talk is to get yourself a glass you enjoy drinking from. A favourite glass can add hugely to ones enjoyment of drinking at home and rather like a favourite beer, the favourite glass becomes a welcome friend and is a signal to the brain that its time to relax.

When choosing a glass there are a few tips to consider but it's still a very personal thing. Some people help themselves to pub glassware and although the branding can look great, they are not always a pleasure to drink from. Pub glassware is designed to withstand the rigours of the glass washer and they are often made from toughened glass. This can make them a little clunky when placed to the mouth and also the toughening limits the shapes available to choose from.

A visit to the local engraving shop will offer far more interesting shapes to choose from and the glass is much finer allowing the tongue to do its work much easier. However for real choose in glassware you need to look at what happens in Europe. Here there is huge choice, where the limitations of toughened glass seems not to apply. Each beer has its own branded glass and they are sometimes bespoke to the beer - you wont find the same shape for another beer. Many of these glasses are stemmed glasses and that would be my personal choice for a beer glass.

My current glass

I like the stemmed glass that narrows to the top concentrating the aromas allowing them to blossom within the nose. Glasses with wider heads allow all of those delicate smells to dissipate quickly into the atmosphere and one of the main enjoyments of drinking a fine beer can be lost. The draw back with the former style of glass is that those beers that are well conditioned such as some German and Belgium beers, can pour with too larger head, so one needs to be careful of this.

I would also tend to avoid the pint glass. I like to drink my beer in smaller amounts, savouring the flavours and treating the drink like a bottle of fine wine, pouring smaller amounts at a time. The advantage here is that the beer stays fresher with more condition for longer.

Whatever glass you settle on make it part of your enjoyment of drinking a beer. After all, most of us have a favourite coffee or tea mug so why not do the same with your beer glass. Cheers!