The humble pint

So the pint is done with we’re told!

Well what would they say in Prague, where refreshing pilsners stand proud in tall half litre glasses, quenching thirsts almost with their looks and frothy gusto alone.

Tell the football fans sinking a pint of bitter before the well trodden march to the ground that their beer will be served in flutes or tulips or whisky tumblers. “Like hell” they cry!

The ugliness of a nonik pint glass aside (does anyone use one at home?), the pint, and the pint glass, is an important measure of beer and heritage that should not be done away with.

The Humble Pint

The two third measure – and add to that beers of 2-3% ABV which are seeing a resurgence – will fill an important piece of the drinking puzzle in the UK, where a half never suffices and a pint can be crammed too easily into too short a space.

And we should firmly encourage the open embrace these opportunities extend to us, just as we should openly embrace a more diverse and appropriate appreciation of glassware. Any trip to Belgium will reveal the theatre and enjoyment of a beer drawn in it’s own peculiar glass served with the aplomb of an expensive long cocktail.

But beer isn’t wine or whisky or a white russian.

Beer is unique in its ubiquity and its diversity. And its price range too. There’s a beer for every occasion – refreshment, celebration, reverence, gastronomy, solace and lubrication.

A Belgian triple is undeniably better in a angular chalice with a volcanic head lifted by the incessant bubbles of strategically placed nicks in the glass. An aromatic IPA, strong and robust, requires a voluptuous curve to protect the aroma and limit the portion. Cherry beer fizzing and frothing in a flute would lose all it’s charm and pizazz transferred to a conical pint glass.

But none of these requirements demand the extinction of the great pint, all five hundred and sixty eight millilitres of it. It would be like recalculating the marathon, famously stuck at twenty six miles three hundred and eight five yards since the British tweaked and tangled with the route in the lead up to the 1908 Olympics in London.

Not all things are worth saving in the name of habit or nostalgia, but neither should we do away with something so useful and iconic when the pint is such a well worn part of our daily drinking.

Half pints at the Grove

With handle and I

Chalice or pint?

Two pint take home?