The Greenwich Union – Meantime Brewing’s “brewery tap” – serves half pints in clean, simple, “tulip” stem glasses. Fuller’s recently introduced similarly elegant glasses for Discovery and Honey Dew. They serve everything else in tall, fairly narrow tumblers, with room for a head. The Pembury Tavern in Hackney Downs, again, used taller than normal half-pint glasses, with room for a head.
Not all pubs are doing this kind of thing.
I’m really getting fed up of ordering a half and getting what looks like a tooth glass, full to the brim, with a grey scum instead of a head. The pints in these pubs look fine, so it’s not the beer, or the technique – just the glass.
I’m kind of used to that with ale, but last night I was served a half of Meantime’s Helles lager in a straight, short, half pint tumbler, with no head. It tasted fine, but looked dreadful. Like urine, frankly.
This wasn’t a dodgy pub next to a railway station, with fly-blown windows and an incident board outside: it’s in the good pub guide.
Landlords – get nicer glasses!
Photo from glassware supplier barmans.com
2 replies on “I hate hi-ball glasses”
I couldn’t agree more – a regular gripe of mine are those piss poor little half pint glasses that make you think you’re drinking a shrunken pint.
I think the practice of drinking halves, not pints, would draw more people – particularly women – into drinking. Stemmed halves? Even better! You may think that’s simplistic and a little sexist, but to hell with it, I think it’s true.
I think stemmed halves are great – the Belgians and the French have the right idea.
There should be no shame in drinking halves.