The Lemon Fool

The quip about Mason jars on the last thread prompted me to start a new topic on the glasses we drink from.

I was not actually aware...until I just looked it up that there are certain individuals (called hipsters I think) with beards and funny half shaved/half long hair and ironic cardigans who like to drink beer from a Mason jar...WTF!

I used to know a guy in Texas whose father would only drink iced tea from a Mason jar and I believe that it was a thing that reminded him of his childhood (if he was alive today he would be about 90 years old) but this ironic appropriation of nostalgia by the hipsters resulting in the drinking of beer from a totally unsuitable container...whatever next, we'll all be eating off wood and slate before long! Hang on...

I will admit to sometimes drinking straight from the bottle, a cold bottle of something fizzy and bland like a Becks or a Dos Equis usually while at the poker table is pleasant enough when the beer isn't the main focus of what I'm doing. Otherwise I am a great fan of the Belgian system of having a particular glass for a particular beer and for the more complex flavours and aromas of a Trappist beer or similar the tulip shaped glasses seem to work well.

What I do require from my beer drinking vessel though is a thin lip to the glass, I am not nor have I ever been in favour of tankards be they glass or pewter. For my normal sessions in the local then a straight pint glass seems to me the ideal vessel for a 3.8-4.5% sessionable (made up word) ale. Actually when I say straight glass I don't actually like the really straight sided glasses, they seem wrong somehow, I used to like the ones that had that practical bump two thirds of the way up but ones with a gentle "galbe" also suit my needs perfectly.

Am I unusually fussy or do others have preferences?

John

Well, I'm as far removed from a hipster as I could possibly be, but I have a mason jar at home that I do drink beer from.

I first came across this whilst on holiday in Lake Louise, Alberta in 1998 - no hipsters in sight!

More often than not, if I am not drinking from the bottle, I prefer to drink from a half pint glass. First experience of this was drinking a Broon up north, where it is the done thing. Sensible enough, the beer stays colder in the bottle than if you held it in your hand (straight glass issue, of course).

I don't have the stomach for drinking large quantities of beer (quite literally!), so visits to beer festivals are always "halves drunk" - I prefer festivals that offer a half-pinter as I don't have to remember to say "only a half"!

Glass tankard with a handle - eeuugh!

Meatyfool..

Favourite glass: A full one.
Least favourite glass: An empty one.

I used to like the ones that had that practical bump two thirds of the way up

Called a "nonic", pronounced "no-nick". The idea is that the rims do not get bashed together and get nicks in them.

Julian F. G. W.

English beer tastes best from a chunky dimpled 'handle' glass
http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/prod ... HjUf9KLRdg

AleisterCrowley wrote:English beer tastes best from a chunky dimpled 'handle' glass
http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/prod ... HjUf9KLRdg

You must be joking. My heart sinks when I glance over and see my pint being poured into one of them, and I curse myself for not having anticipated it and asked for a straight glass.

I'm usually buying two pints, and my (female) partner hates them even more than I do, so I have to hand it to her with an apology.

Just gross.

Scott.

I love 'em and they're coming back into fashion. Beer stays cool longer - no hands on the glass, and heavier.
Places I drink, straight (with a bulge) are the default, and connoisseurs have to request a proper pint mug

When at home, it's always out of a beer festival glass.

The pints are mostly straight, the half pints are mostly straight with a handle.

My problem is I'm a hoarder. I really don't need 9 pint glasses, and 5 or 6 half pints. And I'm either going to have to have a clear out, or get a bigger kitchen, or throw away something else like plates, or stop going to beer festivals. Option 4 ain't gonna happen. Some of the early Farnham Beer Festival* glasses from the late 70s have apparently become collectable.

* Apparently the longest running beer festival in the same location, the marvellous Farnham Maltings. Fitting.

In the pub, I struggle to get worked up about it. I've noticed dimpled pints have come back into fashion somewhat. Quite often they seem to be logoed with the brew or brewery, and sometimes they try and make the effort to marry them up. Round here the nonic ones seem to have gone out of fashion, replaced by thicker straight glasses, and the odd dimple.

I've got a hoard of Reading, and Windsor&District beer festival glasses - marked off at 1pt, 1/2pt, 1/3pt

I used to have an extensive glass collection, now I mostly drink from festival pint glasses (GBBF, Ealing, Redhill). I do have this Spiegel Speigel IPA, stout, wheat glass set but it doesn't see much action.

I really like the Adnams straight glasses (if Adnams are reading I did actually buy them!). Someone bought me a continental goblet type glass with stem a few years ago as a present, and I sometimes use it if I feel the overwhelming need to look like a ponce I have no idea what a Mason Jar is but I would put that in the same category by the sounds of it...

I'm with those that can't stand tankards.
All the best, Si

I did see someone with a leather tankard on Plough Monday. It doesn't appeal to me though.

Julian F. G. W.

My 'Ercha' tankard, swiped from a pub in tbe 60's

https://goo.gl/images/qaNpDU

AleisterCrowley wrote:English beer tastes best from a chunky dimpled 'handle' glass
http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/prod ... HjUf9KLRdg

Hear, hear!

Sadly one has to ask explicitly for them in most places. More seriously, sometimes the jugs-with-handles are inferior (non-dimpled) alternatives that are worse than a straight glass.

In Jack's Return Home ie Get Carter, Michael Caine orders a beer in a pub in Newcastle.

"Pint of bitter.... In a straight glass!"

JMN2 wrote:In Jack's Return Home ie Get Carter, Michael Caine orders a beer in a pub in Newcastle.

"Pint of bitter.... In a straight glass!"

I think traditionally there was always a North/South divide in straight glass vs mug. I came from the Midlands so it was always a bit 50/50 and down to personal preference rather than tribal allegiance.

John

AleisterCrowley wrote:English beer tastes best from a chunky dimpled 'handle' glass
http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/prod ... HjUf9KLRdg

I'm with you there. Preferably oversized so that you can have a head with a full measure.

Much less chance of dropping it or spilling the beer.


Similar idea to the Kwak drinking vessel https://www.beerhawk.co.uk/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/d/s/dsc_1029_v2.jpg

Slarti

I prefer oversized pint glasses and have perfected a method of holding my pinky under the glass for support. I have never dropped a glass with beer in it.

I like Kwak- got through a lot when I was in Brussels. Tastes better from the proper glass !

UncleIan wrote:My problem is I'm a hoarder. I really don't need 9 pint glasses

If you're drinking out of 9 pint glasses it's not hoarding that's your problem!

I'm another strong voter for straight glasses. I hate dimpled ones, if only because they're so uncomfortable to hold. If you hold them by the handle they're heavy and cumbersome, and if you hold them (as I do when I've no choice) with your fingers through the handle it feels like gripping a pineapple.

Fortunately, I can't recall the last time I was served beer in a dimpled glass. My local pub has a few, but they're only there for the few eccentrics who prefer them, and I hardly ever see someone specify one.

I also prefer glasses with a pint line on them. One of my bêtes noires is being served short measures, it drives me bonkers. I don't actually like a large head on my pint, but there's always that awkward dilemma as to whether it's bad enough to justify asking for a top up. If it's busy, and it's taken some time just to get served in the first place I can't be bothered to wait for them to come back and I just suck it up (literally) while grumbling about incompetent bar staff.

But otherwise I will ask for a top up, though all too often the reason for the short measure was the basic inability to pour a decent pint, so that the top up attempt often results in a foaming addition that when it settles is no better than the original!

At least with a pint lined glass there's less risk of a short measure, but although I saw quite a few a couple of years ago these seem to have largely disappeared again - no doubt at the request of the breweries.

I don't mind drinking beer out of a bottle - in fact when it was de rigueur to stick a slice of lime in the neck of Mexican beers there was no choice - but given the choice I'd still prefer it in a glass.

But as I mentioned in an earlier post I don't like canned beer at the best of times, and drinking it out of the can makes it even worse as I find the taste and sensation of the metal on my mouth destroys any residual flavour the beer might have had.

AleisterCrowley wrote:English beer tastes best from a chunky dimpled 'handle' glass
http://www.drinkstuff.com/products/prod ... HjUf9KLRdg

Clitheroekid wrote:I'm another strong voter for straight glasses. I hate dimpled ones,

I always thought that Northerners preferred straight glasses and Southerners preferred dimpled glasses with handles. The above two comments support that view.

I've lived both in the North and the South, but prefer straight glasses. It's a tactile thing; I just feel that a beer glass should not be held like a teacup. It should be clutched around its body with a manly grip.