The standard unit of measure
For many years, dispensing beer in pints has served us well and we knew that anyone drinking less than the standard unit of measure simply wasn’t playing the game. However, times have moved on and we’re now saddled with a legally defined unit that’s simply unfit for purpose as most drinkers see a half pint as a half measure. Often, bars serving two-thirds of a pint are guilty of charging pint prices for smaller pours and who has ever seen a boozer sell thirds?
It’s not uncommon for me to hear “well, I couldn’t drink a pint of it…” as a genuine criticism of world-class 7%+ beer at our bars and tasting events. It’s usually accompanied by a dismissive guffaw.
Explaining that higher ABV beers with more eclectic flavours shouldn’t be judged by whether they’re ‘pintable’ is fortunately often met with a nod of acknowledgment from the previously guffawing bell-end.
We took Chuck Silva (the brewer from Green Flash) around the UK to launch West Coast IPA last year and it was great to help bars understand that an 8.1% IPA should never be positioned as pint sized and that offering a half pint of an 8.1% beer for £3.50 offers greater ABV value to the customer than a pint of 4.0% beer at the same price.
The Americans don’t have our cultural association with ‘the pint’ and serve 8oz, 12oz and 16oz pours that are appropriate to the ABV and style of beer. Because of this, they have a drinking culture that is open to smaller pours and would be unlikely to criticise a beer for not being pintable (unless it was claiming to be a session IPA).
The whole concept of a ‘single serving measure’ of beer is one that’s saddled with decades of ingrained ideology – something that wine doesn’t have to endure. Imagine going into a restaurant and ordering two bottles of wine – one for you and one for your companion – where you both drink from ‘your bottle’. This would be a social faux pas of the highest order, yet we don’t apply the same logic to beer even when it’s approaching (or exceeding) wine ABV.
It was wine producers who appropriated the beer bottle design for their booze many years ago, implying that beer has been served in 750ml bottles for centuries. Yet, we currently have a real issue with the idea of beer coming in sizes that encourage people to share. Even a 330ml bottle of something massively boozy is not necessarily for one person and can give two lovely glasses for two lucky people to enjoy.
It’s essential that pubs and bars serve higher ABV beers in decent glassware as everything’s lost if the bar serves something like West Coast IPA in a standard half-pint tumbler. The positioning of beer to customers is crucial to them having a chance to evolve beyond the pint and the pub – something that has to happen if we want our beer-drinking culture to continue developing.
Andrew Morgan, founder of The Bottle Shop