Digging through my beer refrigerator, I noticed this lonely imperial pilsner from Dogfish Head Brewing Co. Perfect! Now for the spoiler. I see way too many people taking a big beer and pouring it in a pint glass. In order to keep this from sounding snobby, I’m going to illustrate this point with a video.

Watch this and then come back:

Online Videos by Veoh.comOnline Videos by Veoh.com

Big beers are like big wines. You need to present the best parts of the beer (the head, the nose, the body, etc., etc.) in glassware that will accentuate them. Why? Because beer is much more complex than you might think. In fact, beer has more flavor compounds than wine, which makes sense if you realize that beer has many more ingredients than wine. The problem is that we often focus only on hops or malt. We forget about how different malt and hop flavors can show up at different temperatures and in glassware that helps bring them out. In the video you can see how the pilsner glass actually wedges the head in and makes it thick and pleasant on the lips. This pilsner was too big for a pils glass. Because of its imperial designation, it should have been served in a snifter-type glass, but for purposes of illustration I chose the pilsner glass.

So do I have to go out and buy all new glassware? No, absolutely not. You can find great glassware at places like Liquid Planet and other stores in town, but you can use your wine glasses for serving big beers, especially barley wines, imperial beers, dubbels and tripels.

Prost,

GG

Share on Facebook