Civilization of Beer: Glassware and Gas Matters

The first goal of Civilization of Beer is to close the gap between beer studies and wine studies in the professional culinary community and return beer to its proper place at the American table. One of the ways the company is achieving this goal is through the insistence on the use of glassware when serving and tasting beer. Although I promote beer, I believe that wine sellers are often taken more seriously than beer sellers. Perhaps this is because beer has been promoted for so long as a "not so serious" libation to be drunk in mass quantities with little regard to flavor and presentation whereas wine has been taken ever more seriously with flavor and quality at the forefront of any discussion of it. Whatever the reason, beer has a ways to go when it comes to being taken seriously. The trick is to take the beer seriously while at the same time not taking ourselves too seriously resulting in people thinking we're just being beer geeks or snobs. Requiring the use of stemware when tasting and training with beer might seem a bit snobbish but, there are very practical reasons to use a glass. How many wine drinkers do you know who drink wine from the bottle?

We've all heard people say the beer is already in a glass when we've offered them a glass for their bottle of beer. We must teach teach these folks, in a gentle way of course, that a bottle is not a glass. It is a container and not a serving vessel. When beer is poured into a glass, a lot of the carbonation in the beer is released. This, in turn, softens the mouth feel of the beer, and allows more of the subtle flavors to be perceived. Also pouring into the glass creates the bubbles that make up the head foam and when these bubbles pop, the nose of the beer is much easier to perceive. Lastly, pouring the beer into a glass greatly reduces the bloating effects of the CO2 gas. Simply put, when you drink beer from a can or bottle, the CO2 gas is released in your mouth, throat and stomach and the result is that bloated feeling. When you drink beer that's been poured into a glass, the Co2 has been given a place to go and you won't feel as full. It's true, spread the word.

The sales implications of serving beer in a glass cannot be ignored. If you sell and serve beer, you will sell more of it by putting it in a glass. The beer you sell will be "less filling" and people will be able to comfortably hold more of it in their stomachs and as a result, they will buy more beer from you per visit.

So next time someone offers you a glass for your beer, don't say its already in one. Take the glass. Next time, we'll talk about making sure that glass is clean.

-Sam Merritt, President, Civilization of Beer

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• To read more about Civilization of Beer, click here.