Quick venn diagram of my current state…Seriously pondering a self imposed social media hiatus…but WAIT I’m an indie author and must therefore Be Continuously and Annoyingly Online with my pleas and silliness to prove how cool I am all to generally no avail….alas….
Welcome back one and all to your drinking advice / audio book / random thoughts substack. This time around instead of talking about what’s in your glass, we’re going to have a conversation about the glass itself.
Again, as with all things Liz and Boozy, these are merely guidelines, not hard and fast (read: snotty and exclusionary) rules. Rest assured, I’ve been known to yank the almost empty bladder from the wine box and milk it into a coffee cup…more than once actually. So when I’m saying “you should serve X drink in a Y glass” you are allowed to file it away for later use as you drink your 50 year old bourbon from a sippy cup while binge-watching The Bear, Season 3.
We do what we must in the name of self care in these troubled times.
Yes, Chef.
Back to business, and this super awesome word I discovered while researching Italian wine drinking habits of yore. “Sprezzatura” first appeared in a book by Baldassare Castiglione in 1528 called The Book of the Courtier (don’t worry, I won’t quiz you on this). His definition is so eloquently Italian I’m going to quote it directly: "a certain nonchalance, so as to conceal all art and make whatever one does or says appear to be without effort and almost without any thought about it.”
It’s carefully studied nonchalance, or doing something that is kind of hard without appearing to break a sweat. You know, like professional ice skaters, ballet dancers, or house cats being house cats. At the time, Castiglione was making an attempt to teach men how to act at court, obvi. But this was of utmost importance –this proof to your fellow upper-class types that you could walk and chew gum at the same time but also make it look top drawer. As part of this effort, or by way of separating the wheat from the chaff, courtier-wise, there was a wine glass that was, by design, almost impossible to drink from.
The thing could easily be mistaken for a cake plate, or a shallow candy dish, but it was a wine glass, meant to be held by three fingers, and sipped from (carefully but without seeming to be careful, remember). One of the many Italian painters (sorry, my research can only stretch so far) even wrote guidelines about how to show people using it. A princess should be depicted “drawing warily and agreeably the little finger” from the glass, while her lady-in-waiting “fearful of spilling, holds the glass handily, yet less agreeably than the other.”
So when you’re worried about whether or not your German hefeweizen or your Big Fat Cabernet is in the correct container to consume from, you can at least be glad you don’t have to prove your High Class Bona Fides by drinking from, essentially, a flat plate on a long stem. But let’s find ways to work this word into our theme because if you think super hard about it like I have been for at least three hours today, one of the reasons certain alcoholic beverages are best appreciated out of certain types of glassware is all about the sensory experience you have while consuming it. So taking that to the next and possibly illogical step—the sprezzatura if you will, of drinking booze, is putting it in the correct glass.
Since beer is one of my things, and I aced the section on the Cicerone exam about glassware, I’ll start there. The glasses are broken down by beer drinking country—Germany, England, Belgium. German beers have the most options/requirements.
You will best appreciate a lighter, fizzier beer by serving it in a footed pilsner glass. Similar to a flute for champagne, it allows the carbonation to shine inside the tall body but also encourages a thick head which you should always pour onto your favorite pilsner. The “Mass” is a giant mug or stein normally associated with Oktoberfest beers or other brews less than 6% ABV since it holds a whopping liter of liquid. A weizen vase (glass) holds a half liter of beer in comparison to its 12-ounce pilsner cousin. The shape traps the sediment that can often be found in this style. Weizen glasses are suited to, as the name implies, dunkelweizen, hefeweizen, kristalweizen, weizenbock and wheat ales.
The stange glass is actually the champagne glass of the beer world. The glass in this cylindrical container is thin but has a heavy base and is intended to serve up a traditional Kölsch (one of my favorite styles because it’s hard to perfect but when perfected is delicious). It also works great for bocks, lambics, Czech pilsners, and many other light-bodied brews. In Cologne where Kölsch beers are king, they’re served in a round metal tray that has round slots for each glass called a kranz.
Finally, while in Germany, you can use the Willi Becher glass for almost any European ale. It’s the direct cousin of the American “shaker” glass and holds the same amount (16 ounces) but about two-thirds of the way up, the body tapers back inwards instead of being the straight sided style of glass used by bartenders to shake cocktails and also serve beer in the U.S.
English glassware consists of the ubiquitous, dimpled pub mug, which us suitable for most any English ale; the nonic pint which in England is 20 (not 16) ounces and is great for IPAs and other highly aromatic brews; and the tulip pint which is what you put your Guinness (or other stout) in, by way of reference, although Guinness has its very own special version of it. Some might say that while German glasses are designed the feature the best aspects of their widely varied types of beer such as aroma, carbonation, or ingredients, English glassware is designed for efficacy of consumption. They all have wide mouths which can allow a lot of the aroma to escape, if you don’t quaff it quickly, if you get me. Having lived in England myself I can attest to the fact that Drinking In Quantity is a Thing.
Finally, the most interesting set of beer glasses come from the monks in Belgium. Belgian beers (excluding Stella Artois which is a decent if uninteresting pilsner) are big, bold, many times sour and/or funky tasting. They can also come in at pretty high ABVs, closer to wine or even some sprits so the glassware is meant to encourage you to not slam back something that’s better appreciated by sipping, by being served in a glass that encourages said sipping.
The goblet is pretty much as it purports to be, resembling something that you’d find at the Renaissance Fair. It’s heavy, chalice style is best suited for Trappist and Abbey ales, or maybe a Belgian pale. The Belgian tulip glass is the go-to, catch all glass that is used for everything from saisons (my fav) to blonde ales. The snifter is the smallest of the glasses. Its use is encouraged with a multitude of high gravity beers like eisbock, barleywine, Imperial stouts, or one of the zillions of bourbon/wine/tequila barrel aged, blow-your-mind-with-their-ABV beers that are currently popular. Mind you, they also have a French jelly glass included in their official list of glasses which you might confuse with a restaurant iced-tea glass here in the States. It’s best used for Flanders red (a personal favorite), lambics, or Witbeirs (unfiltered beer that have a high level of wheat).
Whew. Ok, so I can see right away that my time (a.k.a. your interest limit this obscure subject) is almost all used up and I’ve thrown a lot of beer styles at you that might have you scratching your head or, worse, tuning me out.
You can learn more about the various ins and outs of beer glassware at cicerone.org. If you don’t give a rip what you pour your next brew into as long as it’s the kind you like, then by all means pour it in the yeti or the wading pool if you like. I’m just here to lend a little sprezzatura to your day!
Audiobook land: Still listening to Wellness by Nathan Hill. I’m equally horrified and entranced by this book, mainly because I find it to be (horrifyingly) spot on about relationships.
I NEED RECOMMENDATIONS FOR MY NEXT LISTEN! What have you listened to that you think I might appreciate, if not enjoy. I’m open to almost all genres except grisly horror or self-help (which I tend to conflate, lol). Leave your rec in a comment. OR not. It’s a free country.
xoxo
Liz