Pint vs Schooner

A pint and a schooner

A couple of years ago Brewdog helped get an old measures law changed, meaning that beer can be served in 2/3 of a pint 'schooners.' Anyone whose been to one of Brewdog's bars will be familiar with schooners as a number of their mid-strength beers are served in them, but few other bars have taken to serving a schooner of your favourite brew. 

Personally, I quite like having a schooner of beer and I own a Brewdog one. It's a little more than a half and it has a nice weight to it. I think in bars, it does make sense to serve beers of 6-8% ABV in schooners and I'd love to see it offered in more establishments.

When Brewdog Shoreditch recently had one of The Kernel's IPAs as a guest, a schooner was just the right volume to drink it in, particularly after the first two pints of Dead Pony Club that I'd consumed.

Of course nothing beats ordering a nice pint in a pub at the end of a hard day, but I do think that the way we view beer is changing and it makes sense to sell particular beers in appropriate quantities. Some of the really strong beers that are available such as Brewdog's Tokyo (18% ABV) make sense to be served in 1/3 of a pint.

The beers that brought you the post

I have a small range of glassware, certainly not a huge collection, but a few options for drinking beer from. Now, I'm not one to obsess about matching a specific beer to a certain glass but several options can only be a good thing.

I first encountered schooners when I visited Australia a few years ago. It's certainly not a replacement for the humble pint but just a different way to consume beer. The more that the range of beers being produced and consumed in the UK increases, the more people will continue to consider the way that they are consumed.

It can only be a good thing, if we can get away from the view held by a lot of people that beer is just a drink with a 4% ABV, designed to be thrown back by the pint as quickly as humanly possible.