How to Quickly Tell If Your Beer Glass Is Really Clean
A few years ago I decided to get certified by Cicerone – the beer version of the sommelier. During my studies, I learned what a Beer Clean glass is. To be honest, I’ve never thought about it before. Clean glass is clean glass, right? Wrong.
Things like detergent residues and stubborn oils are quite common on glassware and can change the aroma and taste of your beer, and their presence means the glass is n’t really clean. The good news is that there is a really easy way to find out if the glass you are drinking from is not a “clean beer”.
This hack has a downside: if you frequent dive bars or enjoy a couple of beers at a regular airport restaurant or bar, I would recommend not reading any further. Once you know how to detect dirty glass, you cannot avoid it, and I can tell you from my own experience that dirty glasses are almost everywhere.
Okay, are you sure you want to know this? Are you really sure?
Okay, I warned you. You can tell a beer glass is not “beer clean” if you pour beer into it and the bubbles stick to the sides. It will look something like the photo below:
Your beer foam will also dissipate faster in a glass that is not beer clean and / or the foam will not stick to the side of the glass when you start drinking:
This YouTube video gives you complete information:
The video (aimed at bartenders) also explains what to do to ensure you have a clean beer glass in the future – if you clean it. You can tell if your beer glasses are clean at home by simply dipping them in water. If the water evenly covers the inner surface, then everything is in order. If drops remain on the inside of the glass, the glass may be cleaner.
I found out all this a few years ago, and since then I seem to have sent back one beer (the glass was all in bubbles and, to be honest, it tasted pretty awful). I wouldn’t recommend stinking too much about this unless your beer is really terrible. However, if you find this happening more than once in your haunted watering hole, you may want to find somewhere else to drink.