Everything else is different about wiezen glasses.  Wiezen glasses are larger than pilsner glasses.  While most pilsner glasses hold 12oz of beer, a wiezen glass will actually hold close to 17oz.  The larger glass is actually designed to give you more room for the head of the beer though.  Wheat beers are known for being very “foamy.”  Therefore they need a larger glass to accommodate for a larger head on the beer.

Wiezen glasses are also always curved.  Some are more curved than others and therefore have a distinct hourglass shape. While some pilsner glasses will be curved, wiezen glasses actually tapper back in at the top.  This is to hold the citric and fruity aromas of the wiezen beer in better.

Overall the wiezen glass is a very classy glass.  It’s distinct characteristics help to make any beer look good, but it’s really going to make your wheat beer drinking experience shine.

If you were only able to buy one kind of beer glass, I would recommend getting a pint glass.  But next on my list would be a pilsner glass. In fact, I don’t even own a pint glass right now. I only own pilsner glasses (my wife has promised me she is going to remedy this very shortly ).

In my opinion, pilsner glasses are the high class glasses of beer drinking. They’re the champagne glass of beer glasses (although there are some beers that are supposed to be drank in champagne glasses…but i don’t think I’ll ever get the chance to do that).

Pilsner glasses are tall slender glasses that have a straight taper from top to bottom (opposed to a wheat beer glass that has a curve in the tapper). A pilsner glass holds a little less than a pint glass with sized in the 250 ml and 330 ml.

Pilsner glasses are made to showcase the color, effervescence, and clarity of the pilsner, as well as to maintain a nice head. – Wikipedia

These glasses are designed to showcase pilsners of course, but they can handle so many other styles of beer including various types of lagers and my favorite…bocks.  For a full list of beer styles that work with pilsner glasses check out beeradvocate.com.

So if you don’t own a pilner glass, I would recomend it be the next glass added to your collection.

Beer Tip of the Week gives tips that focus on the entire beer drinking experience. We focus on tips for everything from buying your beer (coming in a future episode) to cleaning your glasses when you’re done.  This episode focuses on the later.

I learned this little trick for how to clean my beer glasses just recently.  Before I came across bottle brushes I was trying my best to get a rag down to the bottom of my glasses.  Now I simple use a bottle brush.  I honestly thought having a kid would hinder my drinking experience…but I was wrong.

When I think about going out and getting a nice cold-one, I always picture it in a pint glass.  In my mind, the pint glass is the most universal of all beer glasses.  Almost every bar I’ve been in….actually ever bar I’ve been in uses a pint glass to serve their beer in it.

There are a lot of reasons why the pint glass might be so popular.  They are cheap to make, easy to store, easy to drink out of, and are not as fragile as other glassware. The pint glass seems to be the workhorse of the beer glass world.

The pint glass is characterized by it’s nearly cylindrical shape with a wide-mouth and a slight taper from top to bottom.  It comes in two standard sizes. The 16-ounce is the most common, but the 20-ounce would be more popular (obviously).  A 20-ounce pint glass can be recognized by the slight ridge towards the top of the glass which helps with handling and stacking.

The list of beer styles that are good in a pint glass is quite long.  Name a beer and it’s probably going to work well with a pint glass. This is why I would recomend any person wanting to start their beer glass collection should start with pint glasses.

You’ve heard if from me before if you truly want to enjoy your beer, you have to drink it from a glass.   A beer glass is more than a transport device to get the beer from point a (not in your mouth) to point b (in your mouth). It allows the beer to engage all of your senses.  It is really the only way to drink your beer.

But what glass goes with what beer.  There are about as many different beer glasses out there as there are styles of beer (most breweries actually make a specific glass for each beer).  There are pilsners, flutes, chalices, mugs, steins, pints, snifers, stanges, tulips, wiezens, and red dixies.  Every beer style out there has a specific glass that is suppose to be paired with it (we’ll take a look at each one individually in the future).

The main thing to keep in mind is that there is a certain amount of science that goes behind the pairing of a glass with a beer (some breweries have been known to actually create the glass before creating the beer).  Each glass is designed to enhance flavor and aroma of the beer bringing out the unique characteristics of that beer.  Not only do they allow you to see the beauty of the beer, but they also assist in the development of the head of a beer.  Which helps to retain and produce the aroma of the beer.  Which in turn enhances the flavor of the beer.

There really is no option as to whether you should use a glass or not.  The absence of a glass is the absence of the full flavor of a beer.  And that…is truly a shame.

To read more about beer glassware and what glasses go with what beer, check out these websites:

• Beer Glasware – Wikipedia
• Glassware for Beer – Beer Advocate
• Beer Glasware – ratebeer.com