I’m getting pretty tired of hearing people (guys) brag about drinking beer, or ale or whatever, from the bottle or can it came in.
Those things are made for transport and storage, certainly not drinking from. You can’t even smell the aromas in a bottle. The only good thing about a can is that you get to squish it after you empty it.
How about you Aussies. Do your lot suck from a can like us 'Mercans?
BTW; this thread inspired by a thread that I forgot to link. Sorry.
Peace,
mangeorge
I just took a week-long trip to London; seven days of great beer/ale/lager and not a single can in sight!!
When I get home, I find one of my old friends in town and in my house (more people have the key to my place than I think). He insists on drinking beer out of a PLASTIC CUP. You know, like the ones you get at football games - he’ll pour a beer out of a bottle and into a plastic cup.
I have chilled mugs in the freezer, but no - he likes the PLASTIC CUP.
Did I mention that he likes to drink beer out of a PLASTIC CUP???
I did?
OK.
Oh, and to the OP (since location is gone) I’m another 'murrican, not an Aussie.
So some day when he sets it down, and isn’t looking, pour the beer from the plastic cup into one of the mugs. You might want to wait till the third one or so. He prefers the mug, he just doesn’t know it yet.
Even A&W root beer tastes better in their frosty mug.
The plastic cup is superior to the chilled mug. A frosty mug gets the beer too cold, numbing the tongue and deadening the flavor. mangeorge is right about a glass being better. Much of our ability to discern flavor comes from smell. Bottles and cans block the aroma and part of the flavor.
The typical American doesn’t know good beer no matter where it comes from, so this is probably falling on deaf ears to them/(us).
I do prefer a glass to a can. I hate it out of the can. Glass vs. bottle though, seems pretty close, but glass probably wins. As long as its cold, though, I wouldn't mind it out of the bottle.Homebrew he was drinking Miller Lite, so I doubt if a cold mug would reduce the flavor! 
For a real beer, I like a room-temperature glass as well.
Mangeorge I never thought about the old switcheroo. I spent the entire evening berating him for his lack of taste (among other things!).
Glass, glass, glass, glass!
I’ve been dis-invited from several small parties because of my refusal to drink from bottles or cans. If I go out of my way to BRING beer, your lazy ass can wash a glass.
For some reason this reminds me of Peter Kay…
“Cheese…Cake!”
“CHEESE…CAKE!?”
Well, most Americans don’t drink beer to enjoy the complexities of the smell/taste/mouthfeel, but as a quick alcohol delivery system. As a result, why would they waste a few seconds to pour it into a glass?
Most of the time I favor pouring a slightly chilled ale straight down the middle of a pub glass. But sometimes, like when mowing the lawn, I like to swill cold mediocre American beer right out of the bottle.
Well, after mowing the lawn in the summer a cold beer in the bottle is a COLD delivery system - the alcohol is just an added benefit.
Also:
See, my idiot friend DID take the time to pour it into a “glass”. It’s just that it was a PLASTIC CUP. This is the disconnect. If I want fast delivery, just line up a bunch of cans. But to sit down in a living room and watch a movie (Snatch, because I was just there and was enjoying the feel) with a friend…I just don’t get the PLASTIC CUP thing.
Typical mass-market American beers have so little flavor, a glass doesn’t really make a difference. They do benefit from being cold.
For a beer or ale with some body to it, a drinking glass of some sort lets it breathe, and there’s a bit more to appreciate when drinking it that way. A cold mug/glass is superfluous and possibly not ideal. The British (and others) drink their beer at cellar temperature because it tastes good cool – it doesn’t need to be ice cold to be palatable.
A plastic cup doesn’t bother me. I think the difference between a plastic cup and a glass is misicule compared to the difference a container with a wide opening (glass/mug/plastic cup) and one with a small opening (bottle/can). The material, glass, doesn’t matter as much as the lack of confinement.
Drinking anything, but especially beer or spirits, out plastic is abhorrent as far as I’m concerned. I don’t even like drinking * water * out of a plastic cup/bottle unless it’s only safe way to do so (when biking for example) There’s just something about the way plastic feels on the lips that I don’t like and the way plastic cups feel so unnaturally light compared to glass.
Also glassware tends to be designed for a particular type of beverage in mind. Pint glasses, Pilsner glasses, chalices, wine glasses, champagne flutes etc… are all shaped to accomodate and enhance the unique qualities of the beverage they contain. Pint glasses are well suited for ale type beers, the long skinny Pilsner glasses are made for, well Pilsners and other lager beers in mind while Belgian ales like to breath and warm up a bit in a wide mouthed chalice.
Sure you * can * drink directly out of the bottle or pour it into one of those horrible plastic stadium cups but you won’t be tasting the same beer I will be drinking out of the proper glassware and it certianly won’t be what the brewer intended you to taste.
pilot141 I can’t believe your friend actually prefers those damn plastic cups, good god man even Newcastle tastes limp and weak out of plastic cups. I would make sure he surrenders his key to your house, a person like that just can’t be trusted.
TheFunkySpaceCowboy my friend actually embarasses me. I’ve known him for 12 years, so I can’t say “NO” when he shows up. I can just pony up the plastic cups and hope that no one else shows up!!
OK, you are all going to hate me.
On tap: I lived in Germany for 14 years and hated the fact that it took 7 minutes to pour a beer in a glass (foam reasons, for those who have never been there), but to be honest and on a busy night in a bar, you could wait half an hour to get a beer, if you were lucky. England was worse…you got a flat, non-foam beer in about two seconds. Luke warm to boot. By the way, any German under the age of 80 wants a cold beer…the warm beer rumor is a myth for this generation.
That said, every German who has come to the US to visit me LOVES Miller Lite…one actually spent the extra money to schlep a case of it back home.
Beer out of a glass? What are you? Women? A real man likes the long, thick, heavy bottle. Or at least a beer can thick beer can. Dudes…get a grip…a real grip. Beer’s gotta be in a container you can grab like your…well…
Wine goes in glasses.
Beer shouldn’t have to be shamed into being poured into another outfit.
The German beer glasses have a little line etched on the side which lets the Wirt (bartender) know when he’s given a full measure of beer. (Germans are big on weights and measures). But back to the OP: I agree that the glass lets the beer “breathe”, and it’s just better that way.
I also like my Coca-Cola from one of those old-fashioned Coke glasses. The cans just don’t let you get that “fizz” up your nose and I like slurping the foam of the top. 
Q
I am Australian.
Beer tastes best out of a glass. It’s just one of those inviolable laws of the universe. Out of the bottle is next best, and plastic cups and tinnies are just shithouse.
Over here, people will usually drink from a glass when they go to the pub, but in other situations, people will often drink straight from the bottle/can. At parties or when out at a concert/club etc, I’ll drink from the bottle, but at home I’ll always pour the beer into a glass. There’s no point otherwise.