Beer Glassware Part 2: Serving Up Big Beer

Good evening,

It’s snowing, damp, and kind of cold outside. In other words, it’s a beautiful night for a big beer!

Before I get started, I’d like to point out that a big beer is another term for a strong beer. I don’t mean a “big name” beer from one of the big industrial breweries. Now that that's covered...

My treat for the night is a Nostradamus Belgian Extra-Strong Brown Ale by Brasserie Caracole in Belgium. The vessel from which I will be enjoying this beer is a stemmed tulip glass. When drinking a big Belgian beer, a stemmed tulip is most appropriate for several reasons:

Nostradamus Belgian Strong Brown Ale,
Pictured here served in a stemmed tulip glass.

1. Having a stem on your glass not only helps you keep a better grip on the glass, it prevents heat transfer from your hand to your beer. In the case of strong beers, you generally drink them a bit warmer (10-13°C). If you have a semi-warm beer and add some good old-fashioned hand heat, you end up with overly warm beer, which is no treat.

2. Having a glass that tapers in on the way up helps keep the aroma concentrated, so I get all of the biscuity, spicy, chocolatey, boozy, beautiful aromas right smack dab in the nose. Were I to stick my nose in a chilled shaker pint glass, I would maybe get the most predominant aromas in a toned-down form, but for the most part they would dissipate and mix in with all of the other aromas in the room.

3. The outward lip at the very top of the glass helps with foam retention, while the inward taper helps concentrate the foam.

So you see, by using this glass with a Belgian strong ale - which contains a lot of aroma, flavour and head - I get the maximum sensory output from my 330mL bottle. Fantastic!

There are several other strong beers that have recommended glassware. Imperial Stout is well represented in a snifter glass, as it does not present a lot of foam, so no lip is required to hold it in. The slight inward taper (as mentioned above) helps to concentrate aromas such as dark chocolate, tobacco and molasses. Trappist Ales (not all Trappist Ales are Belgian, so I do not group them in with Belgian strong ales) have their chalice, which generally has a longer stem and shallower bowl than a snifter, but still provides access to the alluring spices that exist on the nose. For beer that is generally served colder (in Canada, anyway), such as a double IPA or a Bock, I like the biconical pint glass, as my generally warm hands help enhance the flavour and aroma. If I am lucky enough to get my hands on a Weizenbock, I stick to the Weissbierglas I mentioned in my first post on beer glassware.

Muskoka Winter Beard Double Chocolate
Cranberry Stout served in a snifter. Delicious.
(Enjoyed at Sir John A. in Ottawa)

Now that you have an idea of what type of glassware to use for your big beers, we should cover another aspect of serving beer: how to pour a beer into your fancy new glassware.

Have you ever finished drinking a freshly poured beer, only to start feeling a bit bloated and gassy? Did you assume that this was just part of drinking a carbonated beverage? That’s what I used to think, until I read Randy Mosher’s book “Tasting Beer”. This handy little tome has taught me quite a bit about the proper enjoyment of beer, as well as how to properly serve the nectar of the gods.

Pouring a beer down the side of a tilted glass helps keep the foam down on a beer, this is true. But what else does it do? It helps keep the beer super carbonated, which is not such a good thing. Mr. Mosher tells us that we should keep our beer glass upright, and just pour the beer right down the middle. The supposed drawback of this method is that it takes longer to pour the beer. Once you have poured a few beers using this technique and reaped the benefits (the ability to drink multiple beers without feeling ultra-full and gross, maintaining the head and with it the aroma of the beer), you will learn to be patient with your beer and wait a couple minutes if need be.

Biconical Pint Glass

I hope that the second installment of my beer glassware education series was helpful, and I’m hoping you tune in next time for brewery specific glassware, where I’ll be covering the Samuel Adams custom Boston Lager glass, and the Dogfish Head/Sierra Nevada/Spiegelau collaborative creation made to enhance the flavour and aroma of IPAs. I’ll also go over a weird Belgian glassware custom, among other topics.


Cheers!

S.B.

What's In A Glass? How Glassware Can Affect Your Beer Experience

Good Evening,

Weizenbierglas:
A grand Idea!

I’ve been out to a few pubs lately, and I’ve noticed that sometimes a fantastic brew is served in a less-than-perfect glass. Some people may think I’m crazy if my beer tastes better or worse based on the vessel in which it is served. Others will think I’m a beer-snob, and yet more will not care. Hopefully some will agree that glassware affects beer experience. I’m going to dedicate my next three posts to glassware, so let me state my case, and decide for yourself whether or not the glass makes the beer!

Case 1: Weizenbierglas (Wheat Beer Glass)

Have you ever been to a pub that serves Erdinger Weissbrau? If not, you should give it a try. It’s delicious, and it is a prime example of mission-critical glassware. Generally Erdinger is served in a tall, slender glass with a bulbous head. This is called a “Weizenbierglas” or, when translated from German to English, a wheat beer glass. It’s made for wheat beers. Obviously, you can pour any kind of beer you’d like into this glass, but for best results, use a wheat beer. Weissbier (which means white beer, the Bavarian term for wheat beers, or Weizenbier outside of Bavaria) is very foamy, due to Weissbier yeast strains and proteins from the wheat itself. When you pour a Weissbier properly, you will get a fairly high collar of foam. The Weizenbierglas’s narrow waist helps concentrate the foam, and the large flare at the top cradles the foam, permitting a substantial “peak” of foam to rest above the rim of the glass. Doesn't that sound great?

Case 2: Shaker Tumbler Glasses

On the other end of the spectrum, you have the “shaker” pint glass. It is best used for serving Cesars. Pouring a beer into a shaker is a near-crime. If you have ever had a very aromatic beer (let’s say a Belgian Dubbel) served to you in a shaker, you probably think that the glass is not hindering the beer’s aromas. Well, there is no tapering, so the aroma doesn’t really stick with the beer as much. This is just a wide open glass that is great for cocktails, but lends nothing to a beer drinking experience. If you were to pour the same beer into a stemmed tulip glass, you would notice a huge difference. There is an inward taper to hold in the aroma, and the flare at the top helps the glass fit the mouth well and also supports the beer’s head. A great example of great glassware would be Ottawa’s own Big Rig, and their Old Man Winter seasonal brew. This ale was a Belgian-style Strong Ale (sometimes known as a Quadruppel), and it was served in a stemmed tulip glass. The aromas presented by this glass were fantastic. The trick was to warm the glass in your hand before drinking it, which brings me to my next point.

The Shaker:
Great for Cocktails...

Case 3: Temperature

Drinking a commercial lager out of a frosted beer glass may be all well and good, but when you are drinking a craft brew, it mutes the aroma and flavor of the beer. For example, I went to a pub in Niagara Falls that had some pretty nice craft brew, and it was served in appropriate glassware. The problem was that the glass was so cold that the beer actually slushed up. I had a porter and a wheat beer that night, and the aromas were nearly nil on both pints until I was half-finished. The pint I had at Big Rig wasn’t so extremely cold. I could just hold the glass in my hand for a minute or so and the aromas were unleashed. And man, that beer was good.

Aroma comes from all of the good stuff in the beer, so it stands to reason that if the beer is too cold, none of it can evaporate and create wonderful aromas for beer enthusiasts to enjoy. Don’t get me wrong, if the beer is too warm… well, we all know how warm beer tastes. Serving temperature for beer should be roughly 3º to 13º Celsius (38º to 55º Farenheit). Darker beer or stronger beer should be served warmer, while lighter and weaker (let’s say “less strong”) beer should be served at colder temperatures. Rules to live by.

I hope that my first entry about beer glassware was educational and entertaining. Stay tuned for my next two posts about glassware, where I will go over some glasses best fitted to strong beer, and we'll also take a look at the Samuel Adams Boston Lager glass. That’s right, Boston Brewery’s Jim Koch has actually created a glass for his flagship lager. Not that it's new or anything, but it is pretty awesome!

Until next time…

S.B.