Tuesday 4 October 2011

Are dimpled beer mugs cool?


At home I drink most of my beer in a 12oz shaker glass. In the pub I like the pint version of the same shape. It’s the straight edges which I like about it. It’s uncomplicated. At home I also alternate between two other shapes – a pint, a snifter and a flute. Those four glasses cover every beer I could possibly want to drink. One glass I never use at home is the dimpled mug.

As reported in this year’s Cask Report, there’s a retro-chic attached to real ale right now and the dimpled mug is a part of that (every other picture on the Report also shows a pint in a mug). Visually I agree that they look good (as long as there’s still a good head on it – nothing looks worse that a pint pulled square to the top of the glass with no head) but as something to drink out of I’m less convinced: I find them too big to wrap my hand around comfortably, the handle makes me clumsy (especially after a few) and they are hardly great for swirling and sniffing, are they?

The dimpled mug stands apart from the other glasses. Only real ale is ever poured into the mug, so it says that this drink is different to your mate’s lager. But does it make them cool or does it just make you stand out and look like an old man? And given a choice in a pub, would you go for the straight up pint glass or the dimpled mug?

39 comments:

  1. I personally find them a little heavy, to be honest. However, I do admit that I agree that the dimpled mug is seen as 'retro-chic' in certain sections of the public (hipsters, mainly) and it does seem to go hand in hand with 'Real Ale' being a 'retro' drink to the same crowd. I have actually overheard someone at work once calling them 'old man's beer glasses'. Turns out she meant these when I asked her what one was. Didn't they get phased out due to thier weight? As in, how much damage it could do if aimed at one's head?

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  2. Wetherspoon in Belfast serves Real Ale in them for people that ask, and plenty of pubs all over the UK have "jugs" if people so desire them. I know this because my previous landlord would often have his beer in one. They're more expensive than straights so tend to be hidden away for those in the know.

    I really have no preference either way.

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  3. I don't have any major problem with them but prefer a 'thin glass' as Michael Caine demands in 'Get Carter'.

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  4. Love the old dimpled "jugs" myself - I don't feel old for using them. I'm approaching 32 - so not old yet also not young (depending on your point-of-view!) Perhaps as I approach mid-life-crisis age I'll start worrying about this sort of thing. Also, I don't have any problem with a pint of "real ale" pulled to the top of a glass with no head. A layer of foam on most cask ales doesn't seem to make any difference to the enjoyment of the beer.

    Anyway, back to the topic of jugs: like most people I usually drink from straight/tulip/nonic glasses simply because I don't bother asking for a jug. It doesn't make a lot of difference - good beer is good beer. As for weight/clumsiness - perhaps you just need stronger wrists? ;-)

    At home I usually drink stronger beers which, I think, demand more bulbous glassware - all the better for swirling and snorting. I'll drink these beers using a brandy-glass, or something like the BrewDog Teku glass. Though I'm currently enjoying beers from my new Summer Wine Brewery glass more often than not. On the rare occasions I have "real ale" at home (usually in growler/"carry keg" form) I often use a glass from our growing collection of CAMRA beer-fest glasses (usually half pints.)

    And back to jugs again: A local pub-cum-restaurant opened a while back with only jugs... they're using tulips now though on the grounds that the jugs are too expensive & people keep nicking them. Must be fashionable!

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  5. They're heavy, unwieldy and impractical when you're in a round. Basically they're shit. I remember the palpable excitement that ran round the pub when we were told we were getting straight glasses. How we marvelled at their modern chic. Of course, what goes around comes around, and dimple mugs have been popular with the bairns for awhile now. They're still shit, though.

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    1. Excellent. Like you I remember campaigning to get rid of the horrible thick rimmed taste destroying junk in the 70s. To see them come back just proves the folly of youth! What next Watneys Red?

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  6. I find them awkward to use, due to the harsh line on the handle which occurs because the glass is cast in two halves and sealed together. My dad left a few in the cupboard and the old ones had handles which were one piece separately addded to the glass so were smooth and nicer to hold.

    Personally I prefer the straight glass or a goblet glass as they sit in the hand better. But if I go into certain types of pubs/bars usually you get a jug which I'm not keen on but others seem to be. I don't see it as an age thing but a comfort thing which makes me prefer the straight ones.

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  7. The most important question is "Who cares?"

    I've got bigger things to preoccupy myself than whether the tool I'm using to prevent beer running down my shirtfront is "cool".

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  8. Oddly, last night I had a dream in which I was drinking in a pub in Stockport, which, as is usual in dreams, didn't exactly correspond with any real-life pub. They were serving real ale into handle glasses and I thought "oh, hipster chic has at last made its way up here". Which, in reality, it hasn't.

    Some pubs around here, when they converted from electric metered dispense to handpumps, kept a small stock of the old oversize handle glasses for those customers who wanted them. Those in the know would often specify them as that way they would end up getting more beer ;-)

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  9. Ok. I use a 20oz Eldridge Pope dimpled mug. It lives in my local, The Three Fishes, in Shrewsbury, Shropshire. Why do I use it? 1) Because I like It. 2) Because on a bar with a miriad of sleevers I can pick it out on busy nights. 3) no one is going to drink from it by mistake. 4) I hold it by the handle thus not warming the beer up. 5) In a crowd you can 'thumb over' the rim and hold the beer by your leg side. That suits me just fine!

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  10. Good to see you (and the Cask Report)catching up Mark. (-;

    I wrote these a year ago. We agree though, even though I am an old man. Or feel like one today anyway.

    http://tandlemanbeerblog.blogspot.com/2010/09/having-us-for-mugs.html

    As Tyson neatly sums up, they are shit, but as long as they offer an alternative, live and let live I suppose.

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  11. I like them, they make me feel extra matcho

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  12. I bought a couple of dimpled mugs about five years ago, and went through a phase of using them most of the time at home. Nowadays I mostly use an ordinary (undimpled, topologically elementary) pint glass, with a ridge at the top, for the sort of stuff that's best served in pint glasses.

    In Wetherspoons, though, I do opt for the dimples more often. I think that's partly because I still feel a certain novelty value to using those in a pub, but even more because I'm not all that fussed about the alternative on offer: straight, thick, clunky blighters, evidently designed with more of a view towards longevity than aesthetics. But they might grow on me in time...

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  13. Depends on the beer. Some really suffer for not being in a tulip or narrower-topped glass.

    A lot of places give you the choice now of a nonic or a mug, and I generally find the mug hard to resist. I think that's because it adds 'specialness' to your pint, and a memorable experience is important when deciding whether to go back to a pub.

    I find the weight reassuring, and as regards the lethality of them, it seems most pubs deem ale drinkers as pacifistic, given the way the glasses are getting around.

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  14. We only ever see lager in them here, in the east European expat pubs, since dimples are normal for lager in the Czech Republic.

    You're right that they're rubbish for sniffing and swilling, but there's something very satisfying about horsing down gallons of familiar session beer from one.

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  15. I own one, but it's a rare event that it gets used at home (Pint of homebrewed mild in a jug? Marvellous!).

    I do have a mate who will ask for one whenever he goes to the pub - and surprisingly 6 out of the 7 pubs we both visited over the weekend had them. The other "only" had a non-dimpled jug, but that was OK - I think he just prefers the handle...

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  16. Chris

    I don't think that they are that lethal these days, anyway. All the pub chains that have rolled out new stock of them-such as Nicholsons-use the safety glass version of them.

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  17. North Bar group serve up in glass tankards. Not sure about those - even less so about jugs.

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  18. Last year I did a poll on preferred type of glass. Dimpled mug was second after conicals (which personally I don't like). One commenter said "The dimpled jug is the vessel of choice for the twat and the chinless wonder!"

    Is this fad for dimpled mugs very much a London thing, as I can't say I've noticed it at all oop in't grim north?

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  19. The only thing worse than a dimple mug is the leather tankard often seen attached by a bit of string to the (oversized, elasticated) waistband of the more extreme end of beardy weirdyness spotted at beer festivals.

    I know they are 'old school', but so is cholera and we don't want that back do we now?

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  20. I hate "big jugs" (which is my standard ever so funny double entendre retort if it happens) and will ask for a straight glass to pour my beer into if I'm served like that without being asked.
    Not because they look old fashioned which they do, but for all the above mentioned reasons, heavy, cumbersome shit etc..

    I even have to admit that it extends to some continental glassware too which is slightly embarrassing as I'm normally a stickler for the correct glass.

    They serve Budvar light and dark in my local and have matching glassware for both. Being a lover of the dark it was duly served the the Bud Czech version of the jug, lets just say the transfer to the alternative straight version was not as smooth is it is with a real ale.. (crazy foam party)

    Cheers Phil

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  21. I like them. They have them in our local, though you get the option for a nonic.

    I always associate dimpled mugs with my dad and my uncle watching the FA cup final with a tin of Watneys Party Seven (dispensed via a Sparklets Beertap).

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  22. I bought one from a UK site as a birthday present to myself, last year. It's honestly, my favorite piece of glassware.

    How geeky is it that I have a favorite piece of glassware?

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  23. @PeteB
    The pewter one's are nearly as bad - at least you can't see how cloudy the pongy ale is ;-)

    And - weight's and measure's act - are they legal measures for serving at beer festivals?!

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  24. I don't mind them, but you often find that a pub only has a few of them and if you are one of the chosen ones, it tends to be fresh from the glass washer and super-heats your beer. Not such a bad thing in the winter? ;)

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  26. Is it a legend that they're actually designed for hand-washing, rather than flipping drinking out of? Thick for strength and dimpled for grip with wet hands? They're certainly shit in a glass-washer.

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  27. Don't think of it too often, but yet they do bring back fond memories of an English pub here in Philly and my drinking days there in the early-to-mid '90s. So, in that very personal sense, I find them cool

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  28. I like them for a change, but I think they might wear thin after a while - well I suppose they did!

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  29. I like them, it takes me back to my youth when they were on the way out but still fairly common down south.

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  30. When I started drinking in the '70s I associated handle glasses with the middle class Whitbread Tankard types. I also disliked them because they were heavy and easily knocked off a bar or shelf. Working behind the bar we hated them because they couldn't be stacked when collecting empties and took up too much space on the draining board.

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  31. Dimpled mugs are cool - but apparently so are bow ties and fez hats.........

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  32. They're heavy and a little awkward, but I do like having a handle and there's something visually appealing about them.

    Horses for courses; if I'm just sinking pint or six with friends then the carrying-three-at-once straight sided ones are ideal, but a leisurely pint in a quiet pub at lunchtime is all the better for being in a 'proper' glass.

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  33. I see this from a different angle living in the Czech Republic which is that the weight and thickness of the glass used in a jug/tankard keeps your half litre of outstanding Czech lager colder longer which is only a good thing, aesthetically they are pretty ugly and fairly unweildy in the hand granted but they have a place and a purpose here in CZ.

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  34. Big split opinions on this one! Perhaps I'm just weak-wristed but I find them heavy and uncomfortable to drink from.

    One thing I didn't add in the post, but was said by a couple, was the use of mugs in Czech. There, for some reason, I don't mind them... I think it's probably to do with the thick, handsome head that comes on the beer. I'm fickle like that and drink with my eyes!

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  35. Thirty-four comments on glassware preference. Well done, Sir, Well done.

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  36. too late to add much but....
    too heavy
    too thick on the rim (like a mug v a china cup)
    too wide to be comfortable to hold
    and there's probably something deeply scientific about the shape affecting the way the liquid goes into the taste buds - wine glass shapes are pretty critical, and I reckon the beer taste is better from a straight/wellington boot glass.

    but each to their own, I just wouldn't.

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  37. I love them like I love string vests. I think they're proper cool but if I ever find the husband buys one of our house, I may have to have words...

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