The cup never lies.It seems pretty simple: A pint equals 16 ounces. So when you go into a bar, pub or restaurant and order a pint of beer you’ll get 16 ounces of beer, right?
Well, maybe. Or maybe you’ll get only 14 ounces. Or 13, or even 12.
Like most naïve beer drinkers, I always assumed that when I paid for a pint I got a pint. It was only after stumbling across Portlander Jeff Alworth’s “Beervana” blog that the hideous truth began to dawn on me.
“I have made sporadic hay of an issue of some import to denizens of Beervana: the use of the dreaded ‘cheater pint,'” Alworth wrote. “This bantam-weight shaker-style glass offers a maximum of just 14 ounces of liquid – a baker’s dozen or less if there’s any head. They aren’t quite ubiquitous, but you find them in the majority of pubs, restaurants, and breweries around town.”
Having a few typical pub-style “shaker” glasses (so called because they’re the kind used in combination with a metal cup to shake cocktails) around the house, I decided to put Alworth’s claim under scientific scrutiny.
The testing apparatus was highly sophisticated: one of the glasses and a 32-ounce measuring cup. I filled the measuring cup with water to the 16-ounce line and carefully poured it into the glass. Sure enough: When the glass was up-to-the-brim, couldn’t-hold-another-drop full, it contained exactly 14 ounces. Obviously there was no way in hell to fit a true pint of beer into that thing.
Were Bend drinkers being cheated out of their hard-earned beer? Some research in the field was called for.
Neither my liver nor the Source’s budget would tolerate downing a pint at every drinking emporium in town, so I narrowed the hunt to four of the most popular local pubs – McMenamins, Cascade Lakes Brewery, the Deschutes Brewery and Bend Brewing Company.
At McMenamin’s I called for a pint of IPA. It arrived in one of the “shaker” glasses with a half-inch head on top. Pouring the beer into my 32-ounce measuring cup – and getting a lot of peculiar looks from servers and customers in the process – I determined that the liquid content was a scant 13 ounces, three ounces shy of a full pint.
On to the Deschutes Brewery, which for many years has been serving its ales in 20-ounce “imperial pints.” My imperial pint of Buzzsaw Brown had a half-inch head and clocked in at about 18 ounces – not a full “imperial pint,” but well over the 16-ounce level, and at $4 a clear bargain over McMenamin’s stingy $4.15 “pint.”
Then it was time to stagger out to Cascade Lakes, which also pours imperial pints. My IPA ($4) had only about a quarter-inch of head and contained a bit over 18 ounces.
Bartender, partner and president Chris Justema told me his pub and the Deschutes Brewery are the only ones in town that use the imperial pint. But he said the Bend Brewing Company also serves up honest pints in English-style pub glasses, so it was with eager anticipation that I headed there to perform my last research of the day.
Alas, my bright hopes were dashed. A “pint” of Outback Old Ale for $4 and turned out to contain barely 12 ounces – 25% short of the full-pint mark.
Pouring 12-ounce “pints” instead of true 16-ounce pints obviously could save a restaurant or pub a lot of beer – and money – over the course of a year. But Alworth and others in the honest pint movement don’t think proprietors are deliberately trying to rip customers off.
“I don’t think there’s any bad faith involved,” Alworth told me. “I think those things [shaker glasses] have become so ubiquitous that everyone uses them. … They’re heavy and durable and that’s why people like them.”
“The vast majority use that shaker glass, and I think they mostly use it because it’s cheap,” said Deschutes Brewery founder and owner Gary Fish.
But Fish said there also are unscrupulous operators out there who use “cheater pints” – glasses with extra-thick bottoms that allow the bartender to shave another ounce or two off the already scanty capacity of the shaker glass.
What’s a beer lover to do? Calling the law won’t help; there’s no regulation on the books in Oregon that dictates what a pint serving must contain. You can pour six ounces of beer and call it a “pint” if you want to.
Alworth said he’s been talking to state legislators about a legal remedy. He also has launched a petition drive asking the Oregon Department of Agriculture to start a program “to authenticate glassware used in bars and restaurants as an honest 16-ounce pint.” (You can sign it at beervana.blogspot.com.)
But Alworth said the chief aim of his campaign is educational, not punitive:
“My main interest isn’t actually to find a huge hammer to force everyone to serve 16-ounce glasses. I think the big problem is people are not aware of what is going on. That’s true of the servers as much as the consumers. My main interest is that when a consumer enters into a pub, they actually know what they’re getting.”
This article appears in Mar 13-19, 2008.
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Well thats the last straw!!! I guess the only way to ensure a “real” pint is to get the government involved and regulate the beer pouring industry……… jeeez, just when I was starting to believe car sale ads stating they had the lowest prices in town! Now I have to loose sleep over a TRUE pint! I can’t stand the pressure so lets go have a pint before we negotiate that lowest price in town.
Good morning H. Bruce Miller
Again, you write us a thriller
with St Patrick’s day here
you criticize the beer
but like your comments it’s all filler!
In this case, the cup lied to you, and you believed it. what kind of comparison is this when you have no consistency or baseline to your measurements?
A: You’re comparing pints with different “Head” on them. A half inch of head is damn near 3 ounces in one of those “shaker” glasses! Forget your geometry classes?
B: You measured BEER. I’m certain that when you poured your BEER into a plastic measuring cup, you did the perfect pour and kept the head to a minimum. Well BEER contains carbon dioxide GAS which changes the volume of the BEER as it escapes. Try using water.
C: I don’t know about you, but when I walk into a fine beer establishment, I’d rather the entire floor not be sticky like the men’s room at the Redmond Fairgrounds during a Sportsman’s Show or Moto-cross. I’m sure the proprietor’s would agree. This is why beer is poured a little short. It has to be transported into your staggering, swaying hand, and then rely upon you to not “party foul” and dribble like so many NW Crossing infants, or actually drop the glass. Durability is the reason for thicker glass. They still will hold a full pint of water.
D: When it comes to beer, I’m concerned with quality, not quantity. I buy beer at the establishments you mention for it’s flavor and the craftsmanship that went into it. I also go there for the atmosphere. Hanging out with a bunch of my friends and having a good time is what I’m after.
If I want to pound down a bunch of beer and count ounces to alcohol to price, *Redneck Drawl* Well get me a rack o’ Milwaukee’s Beast and send me out Chinee Hat! We can turn around and shoot them cans and double the fun! Hell, the bottle return ain’t worth the nickel anyhow, 5 cents gets me one .22 bullet!*ahem, done*
So Mr. Miller, to you I’ll say
the buzz that you have stirred up this way
it’s gallon of crap
and after this slap
Enjoy a pint for St Patrick’s Day!
…Oh yeah. Your OWN GLASS was the “Cheater Glass!”
DUHH!!
Titanium T! Please. You didn’t add anything but drivel
to the reasonable post by H.Bruce (matter of fact it’s made quite a sticky floor here). It’s a fact that the shaker glasses will only contain 14oz (beer or water it doesn’t matter). Imperial pint glasses will contain 16-2oz depending on how it’s poured. The issue is the shaker glass containing only 14 oz, not your shaky rehash of geometry and how much you seem to like to hear yourself talk. Keep buying 14’s for all your friends. Remain ignorant of how much beer you’re really getting. Carbon dioxide has nothing to do with it.
Titanium raises a bunch of irrelevant issues, such as the need to prevent beer spillage on the floor, the quality of beer and why people go to pubs. The point of the story is really quite simple and straightforward: When people think they’re getting a “pint” of beer they’re actually getting, in many places, two or more ounces less than a pint.
There are two issues here, and they’re often conflated. One is a measurements standards issue. This is the most basic, and the one that I am most concerned about. If two pubs are serving beer in differently-sized glassware and both are labeled “pints,” how is the consumer to compare prices?
The second issue is short-pouring, where a publican shaves ounces by adding a big head. This is also an important issue, but it’s slightly different. We need to first establish what the vessel is before we can establish whether the pour is full and adequate.
In Enlgand, they have addressed the first issue by demanding that all pint glasses are certified. The Campaign For Real Ale (CAMRA) is currently in a campaign to address the second. I think we need to do the first before we consider the second.
By the way, thanks for “sacrificing” yourself for the story, Bruce!
In fairness I must admit I erred in implying that Bend Brewing Company uses 14-ounce glasses. Apparently they use shaker-style glasses that actually contain 16 ounces when brimful. My bad — I took a look at the glass and assumed it was the standard 14-ounce “pint.”
However, the “pint” I was served did contain only about 12 ounces, as measured.
dear titanium t. so when you go to the gas pump to fill up for for a fun travel trip you are there to get started on having fun and don’t care if you only get 3 qts. instead of a measured gallon? bull
I am currently doing research on the same subject here in Michigan and I just wanted to add one more thing that I think wasn’t really brought up in the conversation yet. I think that the person selling the beer should disclose the amount of beer that the patron is buying. If they want to serve 14oz pours then that is fine, but please let the customer know that it is a 14oz beer. Also, you can’t call it a pint if it is smaller than 16oz. So please stop calling your 12-15.5oz pours a pint just because it is in a “Pint” style glass. It is partially the fault of the fact that the server/waitstaff calls the beer in a pint style glass a pint of beer. The owner/General Manager should be teaching the waitstaff to not call the beer a pint when it is less than 16oz.
Shane Angove
586-939-7952
We’ve known about this for sometime now and even brought it up to the bartender/owners. They just don’t care and prefer to not even discus the issue. Not getting what is shown on any Beer advertising posters on the bar walls. If called false advertising. Just my 2 Cents
In Canada a pint is a legal measurement and MUST be 568 ml, or 20 ounces (imperial)
This is the kind of hard research we need to evolve into a modern society. Keep up the good work. I will raise my cheater glass to you and to all who fight for our right to party !
I have trouble in pubs that serve beer with a head on it: I have Yorkshire blood, and I won’t pay beer prices for air (or nitrogen). I insist on a stamped glass certifying it holds a pint, either to the brim, or to a printed mark on an “oversize” glass. I always stipulate “no head please” if it is a dead pint glass. This irritates servers and other customers, but I don’t care: I pay for 20 Imperial fluid ounces of liquid beer or cider, and I always get it. That is the law. [An Imperial fluid ounce is 1/160 of an Imperial gallon, the Imperial gallon being 20% more than the US gallon, while a US fluid ounce is 1/128 of a US gallon, so a larger proportion of a smaller gallon, so US fluid ounces are about 4% bigger than Imperial ones: 1 Imperial fluid ounce = 0.9607603 US fluid ounces. This means that an Imperial pint is 19.22 US fluid ounces].