Baffling Beer Glasses: Newsletter Challenge (April 2017)

The glass acts like a lens and magnifies the beer inside.

The thick bottom lowers the center of mass, allowing a full mug to be slid down the bar surface to a customer without tipping over (back when that was commonly done). The slightly convex bottom helps create the cushion of air it moves on.

The thick glass walls serve two purposes. Glass is an insulator so a thick wall helps the beer maintain temperature.

And of course the refractive properties of the glass make it appear that the volume of beer in the mug is larger than it really is.

You've got it half right. The refractive & REFLECTIVE properties of the multi sided (NOT round) mug that doesn't allow you to see the round edge, of the inside of the mug.

The mugs are properly stored in the freezer, and when served the beer should be just above freezing, the thick glass prolongs the temperature sweet spot...A seasoned beer drinker is never fooled by the mug, until after several beers when judgement in general fades....

Question: Brits drink warm beer, not iced. Do they also drink out of these same kind of mugs? What would be rationale for that if they did? Any Brits care to field this question?

As long as the beer is good I don't mind what i drink it from.

UK cask ales should be served at 10 - 14ºC to get the correct flavour. If too warm, some nasty tastes start to come through, and if too cold, much of the flavour will be lost.

Ah, beer goggles, i think they were responsible for marriages 1.2 and 3.

2 at 10, 10 at 2.

Beer, helping ugly people reproduce since 1384...

It started long before that, by several thousand years!

The difference between beer glasses and beer goggles is the former make things larger and the latter make things more attractive.

First of all, irrelevant to the question posed, one good reason for the thick mugs in a decent place, is that they chill the mugs and this preserves the 'coldness' of the drink for a greater time, but, as to your question..

The thick mug, with its fluting, creates the visual impression that the beer fills the entire EXTERNAL dimensions of the mug, not just the internal dimensions.

Michael Ryan

You're right on your first comment, at least in the US. I'm not a major consumer of beer, but the only beverage I will happily drink at cool room temperature is red wine; I find warm beer absolutely repulsive. All other beverages (including water) I want either ice cold or pretty hot (yet not to burn my lips, like some _wife seem to want).

As to fluting, look at post #8. None of those mugs was fluted.

Also, The OP did not specify that the mugs were transparent. When I think of beer mugs, I usually have a mental image of something made of metal or ceramic.

(Edit) Upon re-reading, The title of the OP did say "glasses", while the text said "mugs". I was remembering the text, not the title...

US beers, being of the lager type, are indeed better drunk cold. That does not exclude other beer types, more common in Britain, from being much better drunk warm. The parallel is with white wine and red wine. The darker the beer (stouts like Guinness) the better it is drunk at room temperature.

Yes, but why?

As they tip up the glass to drink, their view of the mugs contents is distorted, so the amount drank and the amount remaining is ALL IN THE MIND?

The beer glasses took that form to be durable when glass replaced tankards

The thick walls make the mug more durable. Less likely to break when coming to a stop on someones head. The thick bottom makes it bottom heavy so it's less likely to tip over and waste all that good beer. And have to waste time mopping it up.

Don't think the old tavern keeper cared about any thing else. A pint is a pint no matter was type glass it's put in.

Could also be heavy because if you had so much and can't lift to your lips then you know it's time to quit.

the reason for this is the different refraction of beer and glass, but also an empty (filled with air) bottle made of glass looks in an other way than it is.

A massive glass-stick acts like a (cylindircal) lens.

First Neandertaler couldn't produce bottles with regular walls.

Can you explain?

what is to explain?

Geez,, you must be one heck of a boob if you think a heavy mug makes a beer taste better, then again quite a number of people that drink more than one beer at a sitting may say that any type of beer in any type of mug may taste better.

Is it a manufacturing cost (raw material+process)/durability trade off?

Presumably publicans choose on the basis of lifetime cost of the glasses - initial cost +lifetime.

Bill

And here I thought beer glasses were made with heavy bases to not be easy to knock over. Also to be more forgiving when using them to view the opposite sex.