Where's the Beer?

I was recently at Ryan's Irish Pub in the East Village enjoying a nice cold post-work Guinness when my friend Steve pointed out that the pint I was drinking was not truly a pint. Over the past decade since I returned from living in London, I've gotten used to the size of an American pint, which is 16 ounces, while a real pint in my opinion is 19.2 ounces - the way they serve it in Britain. In the UK it's technically called an an Imperial Pint and has been a government-regulated standard for several centuries. I've never seen that size of a pint in the States unless it was at a "real deal" Irish pub, like Kinsale Tavern in the UES (which is where I watched a lot of both the 2002 and 2006 World Cups - if you are a footie fan, this is the place for you, that is if you do not want to go to Nevada Smiths).

So, I was shocked when Steve showed me that the my pint, which I thought was 16 ounces was actually less - it was only 14 ounces!

Through a cute use of glass blowing, the outside of the glass is the same size as the 16 ounce glass except the inside contains less liquid. This allows a bar to sell less beer while still charging the same amount of money, thereby making more per keg while screwing the customer in the process. And here I thought that Ryan's was a "real deal" pub....

While I've seen ketchup bottles and other commodities engage in this type of consumer trickery, this is the first time that I've seen bars display this type of method to squeeze more money from its patrons. Its one thing that a 750 ml bottle of Belvedere vodka is much larger than the 750 ml bottle of Reyka vodka - they are still both 750 ml. Its quite another thing to order a "pint" and not get one. I hopefully will not be going back to Ryan's in the future - if I need a great pint of Guinness, Molly's Shebeen is just up the block.

Via Steve

Posted by Jefe at 2:04 PM, filed under ramblings