Beer: In a Glass of its Own

There is a lot of bantering going around currently about beer and wine and how it fits at the dinner table. I like to think that I have a polygamous palate and that I’ll drink whatever is best with whatever I am eating, whether it is juice, beer, wine or a spirit. However, I do honestly believe that beer matches - or betters - wine against any and every dish you can think up. Yet there is a blind willingness to open a bottle of red or white at the meal table, as if it belongs there by right.

There are many disparities between the reception of wine and beer, and I think a lot of this comes down to one thing, which unfortunately defines beer to those who do not drink it: the pint glass. Beer has an almost inseparable link with the pint, which carries with it connotations of pub drinking, drunkenness, loutish behaviour and just general drinking-to-get-drunk, rather than drinking to appreciate. Wine on the other hand, served in the delicately rounded glass, looks altogether more elegant and refined. A pint glass allows a certain amount of roughness - it can handle a tight grip and almost asks for it; a wine glass needs a little more tenderness.

So the issue, I think, falls onto the large shoulders of the pint glass. A pint is the perfect shape for the hand. It feels right when we hold it. It’s also the perfect amount to drink in the pub. It takes 20 minutes-or-so to finish; it’s designed for quaffing not swirling and sniffing. The kind of behaviour which is synonymous with the pint is not allowed at the dinner table. It’s bad form. Taking a pint to the table says we’re not having a serious meal; it says we’re having a curry, we’re in the pub, we’re having a casual meal at home. A wine glass says that this is a nice dinner; it’s civilised, grown-up.

Some breweries have started filling 750ml bottles with their beer, presumably to make them look at home on the dinner table. A 750ml bottle suggests sharing. A 330ml or 500ml bottle is a single portion – it’s made for one. If you share a 330ml bottle of beer then you don’t get a large amount right? Well, technically no, but it’s the perfect amount for a main course. You get 165ml and that’s the same as a small-ish glass of wine. If you pour this into a pint glass then it looks like a tiny amount. The solution: use a wine glass or a smaller beer glass. Each beer is best suited to its own specific shape of glass, just like wine is, so this is the perfect answer. And I don’t know many women who like to drink from pint glasses, break that wall down and serve it in a wine glass and all of a sudden it’s a different drink altogether.

Sharing food and beer is fun, especially if you make a nice meal and then serve a couple of glasses of beer to compliment it. That’s what eating and drinking is all about. In the pub I want a pint but at the table, or at home, I want smaller glasses, something more refined. The pint glass is a large barrier that needs to be overcome before beer can achieve the same standing as wine at the dinner table. But is it possible to overcome the negative connotations? And will the beer glass find its place on dining tables in the home and in restaurants?