Is beer and ale properly (note my use of that word) poured with a foamy head?
The reason why I ask, is I got Mr. Boston’s bar manual in 1994 (copyrighted 1988, I think, FWIW). It says that the proper way to pour beer, is to set the chilled glass on the table, and pour it dead center in the glass (thus presumably creating a thick, foamy head).
Why?
I don’t know about you. But I hate heads on my beer. It makes it harder to drink the beer. Am I wrong?
Also, I guess I can tell you all. My parents and I went to Frankenmuth, Michigan in the summer of 1995. A fully German town thru and thru, if ever there was one. And the girl who poured our small beer sample cups, tilted it to the side, to let the foam escape. Of course she might’ve been young and inexperienced, I suppose.
Thoughts? Purists and professionals please chime in too.
Beer naturally foams up and makes a head when you pour it, so I would think some amount of a head is right for a glass of beer.
The question is how much, zero is too little, and an inch or more is too much. I say a half inch is about right, enough to let you know it’s there, not enough to interfere with a sip.
Supposedly some head is good for releasing volatile scents to enhance the gustatory experience. I’d imagine that is more of an issue with premium craft brews than stuff like Coors.
I am a craft beer bar owner. To me the perfect pour would have about 1/2 inch of head. A quality beer will have some head but not excessive. After one has drank some of the beer, look for foam on the side of the glass as you set it back down. There should be should foam or lacing on the side of the glass.
Domestic beer drinkers tend to not want head. I think it is because they think they are not getting a full pint.
Foam seals the liquid to keep the carbonation fresh and prevents evaporation. A small-moderate amount of head will accomplish this. This amount should tilt while drinking out of the glass allowing the beer to be drunk without disturbing the foam. Then when finished the foam tilts back and continues it’s job sealing the brew.
The first 2 fingers of beer should be poured directly down the middle of the glass. This enhances the carbonations nucleation point and creates a foamy head. The size of that head can then be controlled via tilting the glass.
Please don’t use the term beer when describing what sounds like lager.
This varies by tradition and country, and sounds like lager.
Lager, typically served in Germany (along with Weisse beer) has a large head by choice. A litre stein there could be a third head. Some glasses are designed to be the quantity and include space for the head.
Typically in the UK, which isn’t good for, lager, there’s a good chunk of head on the lager.
Real beer however varies by area in the UK, the south tends to have non chilled flat beer which can be poured nearly to the top of the glass and the head goes above the glass and disappears fast. The north tends to have a bit of a head on the beer, with a more creamflow type of beer. Probably about a centimetre.
There are laws in the UK that if you request a top up to your beer if you request it. So the head can be removed. Some places have been known to have space for the head too, when you have it, but not seen that for a while (and from my memory came from a period in the 90s when they measured out an exact amount from the pump with a machine).
However, in the US, you do whatever you want with your ale, and treat it like lager anyway, fizzing and chilling it, so I guess you want lager style beer, give it a head. You’re doing it wrong already, why care?
For the ubiquitous guinness, it seems to be about a cm of head, like a beer in North of England.
I worked in a pub in the early 90s which had automatic pumps - we had over-sized pint glasses to allow for the fact that a head would form, and we didn’t have the facility to top it up if it spilled over the glass (drink measures are strictly enforced in law in the UK). The punters HATED it. They were used to having their pints topped up right to the top, and were seriously unimpressed with the large head. They also thought we were under- serving them, as many didn’t realise we had oversized glasses.
It was an experiment the pub companies had tried to reduce wastage, but quickly realised was a disaster.
In America I never felt like there was a firm rule one way or the other. In Japan where they serve a lot of lager, most bartenders insisted that the only way to serve it is with the biggest possible head, and served in a certain clay mug with an unglazed inner bore. They seemed to disapprove when I ordered it to my preference (but that may be just Japan in general).
Which seems a little aggressively pedantic when lager is a type of beer just as ale is a type of beer, neither of which has exclusive rights to the term beer.
Lager ALWAYS has a head. It’s how much of a head it has. The question of having no head doesn’t make any sense. An inch of a head in the UK vs two inches of head in Belgium or Germany. I’ve lived in all three of these places and never once seen a pint of lager poured with no head.
So the question being asked here seems to only make relevance with ale.
Please correct me on the places where the traditional pouring of lager has no head. So the question make sense. Perhaps places in the US now do this. They seem to have chosen to made ale into a version of lager by chilling and fizzing it, so it wouldn’t surprise me.
