The Beer Gauge
The Beer Gauge is a simple tool. But it’s simplicity doesn’t detract from the usefulness or the fun of it. Created by and sold by Three Phase Designs, LLC in Boulder, CO The Beer Gauge measures how much beer is missing from your glass. The beer gauge only works with conic pint glasses, which just so happen to be the most used type of glasses to serve beer in.
The use is simple. After you get served a beer if there’s any room at the top of your glass hold the beer gauge up to your glass, it has a chin on it so you can’t measure wrong, and then match the level of your beer with the lines on the side. There are marks along the side of the beer gauge that will match up with the level of beer in your glass. They’ll tell you how many ounces are in your “pint” (a pint is supposed to be 16 oz, but if a bar gives you a short pour you’re not getting a pint) as well as what percent of your beer is missing. Because of the shape of the conical pint glass a small amount missing at the top is actually quite a bit of beer. In the picture below you can see that I was given a short pour, it doesn’t look like much at first glance, but the beer gauge shows that my “pint” is actually only 14oz and 13% of my beer is missing.
The Beer Gauge in Use
The bartender was a guy I know, so I took my freshly poured beer up to him with the beer gauge just to give him a (friendly) bad time. He jokingly blamed the waitress that brought the beer over to me, but I did notice my next two beers were perfectly full.
It’s true there are some reasons why your beer could be short. If it sits around after being poured before getting to you the head could dissipate quickly. Or the waitress or bartender could spill a bit after pouring. I wouldn’t seriously use the beer gauge unless a bartender were consistently pouring short and not attempting to fix it. But it is fun to see how much beer is missing from your glass as the shape creates a bit of an optical illusion.
Apparently the FTC wants to make sure I’m not biased because of free stuff, so I should say that I ordered and payed for a couple Beer Gauges, and the seller threw in a couple more for free for me to give to friends.
Good post. There’s a movement underway called the Honest Pint Project. It’s run by Jeff Alworth, who also writes the Beervana blog out of Portland. Basically, it calls for 20-ounce glasses, because 16-ounce shaker pints will never have 16 ounces of beer because of foam, short pours, spillage, etc. It should be noted that locally, Steamworks, Durango Brewing and The Irish Embassy have 20-ounce glasses. It’s time for the other places to get on board. The more awareness there is of this issue, the more brewpubs and bars will be shamed into offering honest pints.
Yeah, The Honest Pint project is pretty cool (http://honestpintproject.org/) I was glad to see the only two Honest Pint certified places outside of Oregon are in San Diego (my hometown).
Do Steamworks, Durango Brewing and the Irish Embassy serve all of their beers in 20 oz glasses or do you have to request it?
Lady Falconburg’s has a variety of glasses (but they serve most beers in conical pint glasses). They serve Smithwicks (and probably others) in a branded glass that looks to be a 20oz Imperial Pint. They also have some globe glasses but it’s hard to tell how big those are.
I have to wonder, though, how many places would actually fill the glass all the way up to the very top. Sure, it’s a 16oz glass, but if you fill it all the way up then you’ll have no head and most likely the server is going to spill some of it while bringing it to you. The 14oz mark looked about right to me and I wouldn’t have an issue with it. I bet some bartenders really get upset when somebody whips out one of those things.
I think the 14oz line is pretty good, not perfect but not terrible. I wouldn’t seriously use this to show a bartender they’re short pouring unless it were a frequent problem and they just weren’t willing to do a better job, the only reason I brought it up to this bartender is because I knew him.
But the first pour was at the 14oz line as shown, my next beers were full and delivered by a waitress, so it’s possible to get some more beer in there, just takes a little effort.