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Head to your favourite sports bar or the neighbourhood dive bar, and you’ll most likely be served a glass of achingly cold beer in a shaker pint glass or a Weizen glass. But how many of us really make it a point to take notice of the glass in which the universal summer drink is served? Unlike most other cocktail glasses or wine glasses, it is uncommon for the type of glass to have any direct impact on the flavour of your beer; however, how long a glass can retain the chill temperature or fizz, is what makes or breaks the beer glass. Let us have an overview of the many types of glasses that exist, exclusively for serving beer.
Tulip Glass
Image Credits: Sawyer Brewing Co.
True to its name, form and function, a tulip glass is an upside-down, bell-shaped glass most commonly found in micro-breweries or craft beer places. Meant to capture and channel the aroma of beer into one’s mouth, these glasses has a flared rim and a bulbous lower half. Ideal for complex-flavoured stouts, IPAs and Belgian wheat beers, these glasses are meant to hold beer, to be enjoyed at leisure.
Dimpled Pint
Image Credits: WV Howe
One of the most commonly found types of beer serving glasses in dive bars, the dimpled pint is a textured cup with a handle, that helps avoid touching the surface of the glass directly, and increasing the temperature of the drink. Unlike a basic pint or its larger variation – the Imperial pint, the dimpled pint is a translucent glass that has thick walls, to retain the temperature of your beverage.
Hefeweizen
Image Credits: IndiaMART
The Weizen or Hefeweizen, is an hourglass-shaped glass for beer was created with the purpose of visually amplifying the amber colour of the beer. Buzz is that this vase-shaped glass came about in the 19th century, purely with the intention of making beer look aesthetically appealing. Although purists claim that drinking our of a weizen glass isn’t always going to do justice to the flavour, one can surely attempt to participate in a handful of chugging competitions!
Mug
Similar to the dimpled pint, the beer mug is slightly square on the edges and has thick walls. A product of the 80’s, the beer mug, also known as ‘stein’ in German, was initially made with stone and was later typecast in other materials such as wood, glass and silver. The traditional drinking utensil in Germany, stein glasses also come in jug sizes for larger servings.
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Thistle
Image Credits: Craft Beer & Brewing
A variation of the tulip glass, the thistle is a relatively taller glass, meant to hold a higher volume of drink. With a long stem, pronounced bulb and flaring sides, the thistle glass not only shows off the rich gold of the beer, but also retain the fizz in the beer, helping retain the floral notes of fragrance. Designed to represent the Scottish thistle, strong dark ales taste best when consumed in these glasses.
Stange
Image Credits: Unkown Brewing
The stange is a slender, perfectly cylindrical glass whose origins trace to the Cologne region of Germany, where they are served out of kranz trays – a tray that doubles up as a cup-holder. Meant to hold only small quantities of beer, the stange glass has thin sidewalls, unlike the dimpled pint or stein mugs. Compared to the other types of beer serving glasses, the stange is also lighter in weight and work best for rye beers, pilseners and even tiki cocktails.
Pilsner
Image Credits: Amazon India
Tall and slim like the stange, but tapered at the bottom, the pilsner is designed to allow beer bubbles to rise to the top of the glass, while the wide head allows the foam to be captured, trapping the aroma of the drink. Perfect for all kinds of light beers that almost sparkle and bubble when served in these glasses, a pilsner also works for lager.
Imperial Pint
Unlike the American pint glass, which is just a regular-shaped glass for serving beer, the Imperial pint is its British counterpart that is typically used to serve beer and cider. Also known as a shaker glass, the imperial pint is the least favourable of all beer glass types to drink from. The concial-shaped glass, with a bulbous rim varies in wall thickness, based off of the quality of the material used to make these glasses.
