I guess Ill have a chance to find all that out for myself my wife and I will be over there from April 29 until May 13. Plans are to do some bell ringing, visit friends, see Ireland a bit, check out the grocery stores, and play tourist. Oh yes, and drink beer.
Carleton From: owner-u...@colostate.edu [mailto:owner-u...@colostate.edu] On Behalf Of Stephen Humphreys Sent: Sunday, March 29, 2009 09:20 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:44182] RE: Downsizing beer glasses UK pubs have large drip trays and it's part of the ordering of a pint to see it filled to overflowing. Yes - they actually do fill then overfill. And yes you are actually correct (cause for celebration) that only some pubs have oversized pint glasses that have marks. It's been said on this very listserv that anything more than a 5% head would be technically illegal. You're special 'pint' would - of course -fall foul. Having said ALL that - this "war" you've mentioned a few times today - it isn't happening in the pubs. Apart from the mix of imperial and metric I've never heard of a fight breaking out regarding being served a pretend metric size in a pint glass - it really really does not happen - seriously. And as I said - if you believe you have been short served you can ask for a top up - they're not going to turn you away citing some measurement war where they are on the opposite side - or something equally daft. I'm a cider drinker - cider does not form a head - so I always get my full measure ;-) One of the drinks I had last night was bottled (not draught) cider. As it happens it was not one of the more famous pint glasses. Yes - I had a 350ml bottle of Aspall cider. Strangely enough I did not refuse to drink it due to it being in a metric bottle. I chose metric. (Well, in reality I chose a cider I wanted and knew I liked which happened to be in metric bottles). _____ Date: Sat, 28 Mar 2009 20:56:32 -0700 From: jeremiahmacgre...@rocketmail.com Subject: Re: [USMA:44168] RE: Downsizing beer glasses To: barkatf...@hotmail.com; usma@colostate.edu I would tend to believe Pat's explanation. I'm sure everyone else does too. All you have said is that beer CAN be sold in oversized glasses. This does not mean it is. You also say that one CAN ask for a top up. Again that doesn't mean people do. Somehow overfilling a glass so it over runs the brim doesn't sound right. It makes for mess and makes the glass slippery, making it easier to drop and cause a hazard. Also, product is wasted and that can add up to liters of lost beer that goes down the drain. Who pays for that? You just don't want to accept that when you ask for a pint, you are only getting 500 mL of liquid, not a milliliter more. Maybe now you would like to discuss how wine and spirits are sold in rounded metric sizes in UK pubs. Of course a pro-choice person such as yourself would never order such items for fear of having to utter the word milliliter. Jerry _____ From: Stephen Humphreys <barkatf...@hotmail.com> To: U.S. Metric Association <usma@colostate.edu> Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 8:39:55 PM Subject: [USMA:44168] RE: Downsizing beer glasses Pints in the UK can be served in oversized glasses (showing pint markings) or with 'brim' amounts. You can go back to ask for it to be topped up if you think that the pint is not a legal pint. In reality the bar server tends to pour beer into a glass so it overruns the side - giving you the full pint. I've never seen a pint as small as 500ml. Ever. 'Heady' drinks are poured in a specific way - eg Guinness. There's a 'knack'. Esp in the case of guinness the white head forms part of the 'experience'. Sometimes a shamrock is 'drawn' into the head. In some areas of Northern Ireland this is seen as 'politically incorrect' ;-) . Drinks like cider and lager tend to be headless and don't have the same issue. I would suspect cider and lager are the most asked pint style drinks. Some pubs are now doing 'third' pint drinks now. My favourite one is. _____ From: pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com To: usma@colostate.edu Subject: [USMA:44162] Downsizing beer glasses Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:16:44 +1100 On 2009/03/29, at 2:45 AM, Jeremiah MacGregor wrote: I'm sure Pat can tell us that the pint is still spoken in pubs in Australia, but no one would use it to mean a specific amount and thus the term has become generic. Dear Jerry, Sadly, it is true that the word, pint, is still used in Australian hotels. And it is still used, as it is in the UK, to hide a long period of downsizing by the beer companies in collusion with government consumer affairs officials. Let me explain what I mean. Years ago when a pint was served in an Australia or UK hotel or pub, the beer was served in a 22 ounce container to allow for a pint of beer and for a suitable 'head' of froth. Likewise a half pint of beer was served in an 11 ounce container to allow for the 10 ounce half pint and the appropriate head. Some time ago, in the order of 50 years I suspect, lobbyists from the beer companies were able to convince legislators (or was it regulation writers) that a pint of beer could be served in a pint container that held a pint of water when filled to the brim of the glass. The law makers suitably rolled over like little puppies to get their tummies tickled and, in both Australia and the UK, if you asked for 'a pint of beer' in the last 50 years you would have received very close to 500 millilitres of beer with about 70 millilitres of 'head'. I leave to others to calculate this roughly 10 % gain in profits by the beer companies deceit over this period of time. The next part of the campaign, as I observe it in the 21st century, is to downsize the beer glass from a pint (568 mL) to a rounded 500 mL glass. Naturally to do this the beer companies will need to reduce the size of the 'beer pint' even further. The Guinness company has already begun this process with their 440 mL can designed with enough beer to fit into a glass that holds 500 mL of air to the brim of the glass before you pour in the 440 mL of beer and the 60 mL of froth. I have noticed that this campaign has, so far, been tried in Australia and in Singapore. To answer Jerry's question a little more directly, it seems to me that the use of the word 'pint', and its continued encouragement and support by beer companies, is to maintain the illusion that drinkers are getting more beer that they actually receive. As a side issue, the word 'pint' is a relative to the word 'paint' from the time that Roman soldiers demanded that a paint mark be used on the side of (opaque ?) beer containers so that drinkers could check that the level of liquid beer was 'up to the paint'. Paint was gradually changed over the last 2000 years to the word, 'pint'. But you will note that the rapaciousness of beer makers and sellers is not a new thing! Cheers, Pat Naughtin PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, Geelong, Australia Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/for more metrication information, contact Pat at pat.naugh...@metricationmatters.com or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter <http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to> to subscribe. _____ Share your photos with Windows Live Photos Free. Try it Now! <http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/134665338/direct/01/> _____ Windows Live Messenger just got better. Find out <http://clk.atdmt.com/UKM/go/134665230/direct/01/> more!
