If you've ever received a short pour from a bartender or had a pint come to the table with the beer a full inch below the top of the glass, you know that it's hard to not be annoyed.
Well, now you can find out exactly how much you're missing, thanks to the Beer Gauge -- a piece of cardboard that rests next to the lip of a standard U.S. pint glass and shows you how many ounces of liquid are actually in the glass and what percentage you've been shorted.
The Beer Gauge inventor, an engineer named Chris Holloway, tells The Wall Street Journal that he doesn't think restaurants are trying to take advantage of customers but, rather, that there's a design flaw in the pint glass itself.
The real issue here is not that bartenders or bars are trying to rip us off, it's the poor design of a pint glass. If you want a full pint of beer, you have to have it filled to the very top.
Holloway notes that glasses in Europe are slightly larger than the
amount of beer ordered, providing additional room for the head and allowing them to be carried without spilling.
But U.S. drinkers aren't the only ones worried by pints. A Canadian
beer blog -- A Good Beer Blog -- notes that federal and provincial laws conflict
over pouring regulations in British Columbia. Canadian law requires
that a pint be 20 oz. while provincial law states that a draft beer
can't be larger than 17.5 oz. The reality is apparently that pubs are
serving 17 oz. "pints."
But A Good Beer Blog offers perhaps the best perspective to drinking beer.
We Canucks just measure consumption by the number of units, by how many beer [sic] we had last night -- not exactly how much.
[Image via Flickr: Rev Stan]
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Agreed 100% with Chimpo.
The Blue Moose in P.V. openly admits that their "pints" are actually 14 oz. At least, they used to be...I'm pretty sure they still are.
I questioned the size of the plastic cups they serve in at Harpo's in Westport once, and the bartender on duty demonstrated that they do, in fact, hold a whole 16 oz, if I recall correctly. It's funny, because they're so short and squat, they look like they can't hold more than 12, maybe. Looks can be deceiving!
I think it's safe to say I would be less upset about a short pour than I would be if any of my known associates was enough of a d-bag to pull out a "beer gauge."
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