3. Get the right glassware for your brew
Proper glassware reveals a beer’s character and accentuates its color, aroma, and taste. While some bars use a pint glass regardless of the style they’re serving, this certainly isn’t the case everywhere. In Belgium, every brand of beer has its own glassware, designed to enhance the drinking experience. The glassware is so important that it’s sometimes created before the beer itself. While beer is served at varying temperatures (cold, chilled, cellar, room) to bring out its best characteristics, the glassware in which it’s served is what matters to Belgians. Pouring beer into a glass opens up its flavors and aromas, helps retain its head, and makes drinking it a more eventful experience. Belgians believe so fervently in the importance of glassware that cafés often use a brewery’s own distinctive glasses, which are made to highlight the color, aroma, and taste of each beer the brewery produces. Some Belgian breweries engineer their glassware even before they create the beer that goes into it. As a result, many Belgian cafés and pubs stock hundreds, if not thousands, of glasses. If bartenders do not have the proper glassware for a particular beer, they will often ask the customer if a different glass is acceptable, or if instead they want to choose another brew.
- Strong Dark Ale and Tripel: Goblet
- Strong Ale and Saison: Tulip
- Flanders Red and Oude Bruin: Snifter
- Dubbel and Lambic: Flute
- White Beer: Weizen
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