Fancy nipping for a quick two-thirds of a pint?
Here's some splendid news for those of you who can't in all conscience go into a boozer and ask for a half, but reckon that a full pint might hamper your post-Friday-lunchtime workplace performance: The National Weights and Measures Laboratory (NWML) is proposing to introduce a two-thirds of a pint measure which would "increase …
Years ago (about 20 or so - I'm old), I worked in a holiday camp bar and there were three common sizes of beers: pint (20fl/oz), half-pint (10fl/oz) and a half served in a lady's glass (Wellington or 12fl/oz).
Nice to see that there's still no such thing as a new idea.
...it's the difference of 189ml (or 6.65 fl. oz, a unit of measure I've never understood - surely that's confusing volume with mass?)
While the idea is good on paper, as 2/3 of a pint is a pleasantly quaffable measure, if 200ml makes that much difference to your level of soberness then you really should stick with cranberry juice.
A pint can feal like a big drink at lunch, but a half always feels stupidly small. Also very good for stron Cider. 2 pints of Old Rosy is a baaadddd idea.
I mean, seriously, WTF?
You can already buy beer in:
half-pint glass
pint glass
330ml bottle (c0.58pts)
500ml bottle (c0.88 pts)
and now they want a 0.67pts measure too? No. If you're not manly enough to down a pint, buy a 500ml bottle, and leave a bit in the bottom, muttering about it not being "right".
Besides, it's not very manly to walk into a bar and shout "WENCH! TWO-THIRDS OF A PINT!!!"
can we has a 2 pint measure for those pubs that are so understaffed you queue for a hour to get severed (not that I attended those crap places anymore)
would you order beer of a friday lunchtime in any quantity other than a gallon??
2/3 of a pint indeed, we need a house of commons committee to investigate the possibility of outlawing the pint glass and making 2 litre steins compulsory.
Efros
Why do we still have to have 568ml beer glasses anyway? Why not a nice round 500? Other countries seem to manage fine with beer in measures of 250ml, 330ml and 500ml.
Furthermore, by marking a line on a 568ml glass with a simple diamond-tipped tool, a 500ml glass with a 13.6% oversize can be created. This operation can be performed as glasses are being collected for washing, so will take precious little time to implement in practice.
Of course, since the new measures would be smaller than the old, it should be mandatory for pubs to display posters showing how prices are converted. The unfair practice of charging more for two separate halves than for one pint could be outlawed at the same time.
Not April is it ?
So the thought of 1/6th of a pint less is just too much to contemplate ?
I recently visited australia where they already have a beer size in between a pint and a middy (half) called a schooner. I think its more like 3/4 of a pint rather than 2/3.
so in otherwords, its an excuse for brewery's to shift 2/3 pint measures for full pint prices.
put it in a fancy galss and no one will know the difference. b'stards.
not that brewery's are known for quality practices anyway. like buy back half casks that are known "past it" and push it back out to pubs as quality draft. pumps and pipes at aren't cleaned properly, or when they are, you get your lunchtime tipple half cut with bleach. fantastic.
60% the time a dodgy tum isn't the result of ropey post-drinking food, but the crap beer people drink. drink bottles or spirits. effers. effing eff faced effers.
What's wrong with 500ml - half a litre ? That's just a little bit less than a pint and will be consistent with measures in other European countries.
Ready for flames from EU haters...
So we have the Pint, the ⅔Pint, and the ½Pint.
Othewise known as the Pint, the Nonce, and the Girl. ;-)
I'll agree so long as the Nonce is served in pink rimmed glasses.
On the continent you get 25cl, 33cl and 50cl but over there the beers are generally stronger.
25cl of Bush Beer (Belgium, 12%abv) contains more Incohol (coz it makes ya Incoherent) than 50cl of Stella or over 1½ Pints of Greene King IPA.
Me, I prefer the wonderfully smooth Rochefort 8 (Belgium, 8%abv) as it makes me giggly,....which is scary considering I'm a 6'4", 25 Stone bloke.
Yeah, and the two-thirds by volume will be priced at a fair profit over two thirds whole pint by volume cost and there's money to be made from selling less stuff for more. And there's a load of glasses to be bought and stocked in the pubs and, and, and, please can I mess about with all the things you've not even thought were a problem just for the sake of fiddling about and trying to squeeze a couple of extra pennies out of you to pay the mortgage for the house/feed the drugs'n'hookers habit I can never afford.
Thanks very much.
Lazy fecking feckers.
3/4 of a pint? I ask you... if you can drink 3/4 of a pint then feck me you can drink a whole pint.
Half-measures were invented for students and feckless cumshedders anyway. If you're not a student then you should drink beer as god intended - from a pint pot filled to the brim.
What next?
"Oh, excuse me barman but I'm a feckless cumshedder and would like 1/8 of a shot of vodka please topped-up with 1/5 coke and 2/6 of ice".
Pint for the gent and a glass of wine for the lady. Them's the rules. And if we didn't have rules where would we be? France....
On the other-hand I think the bread idea is brilliant.
Gosh you lot don't half get upset.
Aha, half! Ha! I didn't even mean to do that and yet I did. Oh the lolz.
Anyway, you could get a third of a pint at the Banbury beer and cider festival when I went. Marked on the glass and everything. I would totally drink 2/3 - pint too big, half too small. So there.
.. the 2/3 pint will sell for the same price as the present pint and the pint will jump up.
Sounds like an excuse for inflation to me!
Half a litre is 88% of pint - maybe near enough to a pint to keep pint-drinkers happy, whilst still reducing their consumption by 12%. (But would probably increase landlords' margins by 12% too)
I dont know if its just me but, in the current economic climate how many pubs will want to shell out on brand new glass??
also i cant help but think this is just to raise more tax as people will still drink untill they are drunk but now have to buy an extra 33% more beers and hence pay more duty :)
I say we go metric, no man drinks a half, so role on the litre beer glass :)
Is this to appease the lightweight Euro-drinkers who can't cope with a full 568ml and have to have 0.5 litres, most of which is froth?
A real pint of the good stuff for me please!
I volunteer to try out the new 2/3 pint size. I fell I will need to trying the existing 1/2 and full pint measures at the same time - to gain a full understanding of the implications.
Where do I apply for a grant?
Those old 1/3 pt bottles that were used for the school milk could be put to good use - a mandatory mid-morning beer break.
Mine's the one with the "Beer Monitor" armband.
Students drink half-pints?! That's news to me! Christ, back "when ah were a lad"(2003-2007) we'd not associate with male half-pint drinkers... or, come to think of it, female half-pint drinkers.
We should metricise alcohol- Litres of beer and 50ml / 100ml standard spirit measures!
This is all just a way of americanising us... a Yank "pint" is smaller (and their beer is weaker) than ours- so their alcofrolic intake per pint is probably the same as this new volumetrically restricted pint will be.
Please can El Reg create a section for the curse or abusive term of the week?
Students drinking halves? When hell freezes over maybe. OK, so I might be a 'mature' student, but if you try to palm me off with a half pint you'll soon be calling NHS Direct to find the nearest proctologist...
Same goes for any barman who wants me to take 2/3 of a pint.
Pubs can already if they wish have 2 pint glasses.
The current legal measures allowed for Beers and Ciders in pubs are
1/3 Pint, 1/2 Pint and any multiples of 1/2 Pint.
So just ask your friendly landlord to stock 2 pint glasses
Paris because she always comes in multiples
Surely the 1/3rd pint and 2/3rd pint measures are close enough to half pint to not be worth it!
Make a 1/4 pint measure (for beer tasting), and a 3/4 pint measure (for strong ciders, lagers and ales). Then you have a set of evenly spaced alcohol volumes!
20 fluid ounces divides nicely by 4, but not 3. 568ml divides nicely by 4, but not 3.
Or dump the half pint (maybe leave the pint for metric martyrs), and introduce 150ml, 300ml, 450ml and 600ml measures for the rest of us. Or at least say that is the brim-full volume, so that the pint-or-fractions-thereof is actually not 10% frothy head (for soft northerners who can't handle their drink).
I suggest an arbitrary volume of .586854 of a pint.
Beer can take any shape, and beer can be any volume. So, let's call the new measure "beer can".
that is all
This is without doubt the most fucking stupid thing I have heard in a long, long time.
That is all.
Well, apart from the fact that we're big down under, the sizes I'm referring to are beers: Middy - 285 ml (0.50 pints); Schooner - 425 ml (0.75 pints); but we do also have full pints in some pubs.
Someone tried something close to a 2/3 measure (actually it was 0.62 pints) here a few years ago - it was a total flop:
http://www.smh.com.au/news/heckler/bring-back-the-schooner/2005/07/06/1120329505138.html
Am I the only one who thinks that having regulated beer/bread sizes is flat-out insane?
Why should a pub not be allowed to serve beer in 666 ml glasses if they want (just so long as they don't advertise it as 700ml)?
2/3 of a pint is a northern measure anyway if we're talking actual liquid content and not head.
Ooops- I meant 2/3 in my earlier post, not 3/4. What can I say? The rage just took over.
I went to Le Mans earlier this year and was forced to drink beer from tiny plastic cups at 6 Euro's a pop. It was shit. Still, when in Rome (France)....
I think that forcing pubs to server teenagers 1/3 beer portions in milk bottles is a good idea though. With a neon straw lit-up with the words "can't take my drink" on it or "I'm a little teapot short and stout, I'll have a drink then scream and shout. When I'm sick and covered in muck, I'll phone up mummy and she can pick me up".
I love beer.
nobody really has a problem with beer being served as 500ml instead of a pint, the only thing that causes people to be against it is that the price is very unlikely to change along with the volume
Sounds like you lot haven't bought a pint in London recently. You get beer served in a pint glass but its more like 2/3 of a pint of liquid!
"What's wrong with 500ml - half a litre ?"
Whats wrong with 568ml - a pint? We use it already we all know what it is and we have the infrastructure for it (barrel sizes, measuring equipment, drinking vessels) so why bother changing? It's been decreed that we don't have to change our traditional measures just to fit in with our continental neighbours (who, I imagine, mostly couldn't give a toss anyway) so we migth as well keep the stuff we all know.
So a few tourists are confused - once they see a pint and realise its much the same as a half litre at home, and most poeple can easily do that visually, there's no bother. As for distances and weights, so what? They'll be here for a week or two then they'll bugger off home again so it's no great hardship. Indeed, in many cases it's part of the charm of visiting this country because it's different to what they have at home. If you want uniformity everywhere then I feel sorry for you because you're probably the sort of person who thought it would be a wizard idea that every Holiday Inn on the planet should be laid out the same, decorated the same, feel the same, serve the saem food in the same weay int he same dining room as all the others. Let me assure you, it most certainly is not; it's depressing and homgeneous and dull, dull, dull!
Vive la difference!
Mines the one with the full pint of best in the pocket.
Stu, you HAVE to stop drinking in the East End mate!?!?!
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Mine's the one with the Nip, Flagon and Yard in the pockets
How much more unwieldy is the litre? A problem to LIFT in one arm whilst drinking. Quaffing will be the result because you'll have frequent aim failures until it gets down to half (the glass is heavier, remember).
A pint can be drunk easily in 20-30 minutes. If you drink this, you'll increase the traffic to the bar 50%. Needing 50% longer bar and 50% more bar staff. Or lose 50% of your customers.
Most places in Europe (okay, they serve in half litre, etc.) but you can get the 2/3 measure ish - if your drinking beer with a meal, it's a much better quantity.
And I agree, that is your drinking a premium larger, you don't necessarily want a whole pint. The trouble is, they will price the 2/3 pint at the same price as a pint.
But with all the excess "binge drinking" it will surely only be a good thing - for example, at uni, some of the foreign students used to comment that a pint is not the norm where they came from (the 2/3'ds is), so where they would have 3 maybe 4 2/3rds, the limited themselves to 2 pints, where as we carried on to about 6 normal sized pints! What I'm trying to say - if your drinking beer cos you like beer, not to get drunk, then 2/3rds is much better!
They can serve it in a pint glass marked at 2/3. That way it'll solve the age-old problem of spilling your beer while driving.
(Yes, the title's sarcastic as well.)
1. Glasses are generally round
2. Your head spins when you drink too much...
I think the ideal measure for beers/ciders would be based on the the circle bothering Pi (π)...
I suggest 1000/π, 2000/π and 3000/π milliliters.
And since π is an irrational number you could use this to constantly demand tiny top ups from the barman.
π FTW!
... that would appear to be about 0.73 of a Bulgarian Airbag (Posh), or .81 of a grapefruit, or about a quarter of Bulgarian Airbag (Jordan/Price).
I suspect only larger premises, more than 7-8 nanoWales, would use this measure.
Mine's not the one I wore home last night - wonder who ended up with mine.
A few years ago at a hotel bar in Orlando, Florida, I finished one beer, and asked the barmaid whether the bar had glasses smaller than a pint. She replied that the standard glass was not technically a pint, rather it was 14 ounces. I told her that this was more than technically a non-pint.
It can be challenging doing more than two or thee laps with pints, this new light weight
high speed twother will provide for much more intense drinking games covering many
more laps.
There'll also be shit loads more glass on the table for the big fight.
You spend all that time reaching settlement over proper ElReg units and then fall at the first!
Two Grapefruits o' Best and a Funbag of dry white will continue to be the regular Friday lunchtime order round here thank you!
Just drink as much as you like and if they try to stop you, tell them I sent you and drive on by.
Hi Lester,
here in Germany, you can get beer in 0.1, 0.2, 0.25, 0.3, 0.4, 0.5 and 1litre glasses. In fact, you can even get a regular pint if you happen to be in an Irish Pub. It hasn't hindered me or any of my friends in either getting totally $h1tfaced or even (on rare occasions) moderating our drinking to a lunchtime-friendly tipple. In fact, the only difference is the frequency of trips to the bar.
Ian
Am I right in thinking that 2/3 of a pint of Grolsch or Stella is the minimum amount of beer required to put you over the limit?
I thought that this was the standard southern measure at present. Given that 2/3 pint is alcoholic content and the other 1/3 is lemonade.
