Thanks Martin - I never knew that.It's amazing what lengths people and organisations go to regarding tax etc in the UK! Talk about clinical!
From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:44176] RE: Downsizing beer glasses Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 10:19:21 +0100 When beer is sold by the pint in English pubs, the ”spillage” is caught and is drained into s special container which, I believe, is returned to the brewery (or some other depot), so that an adjustment can be made in respect of any tax that might be owing. From: [email protected] [mailto:[email protected]] On Behalf Of Jeremiah MacGregor Sent: 29 March 2009 04:57 To: U.S. Metric Association Subject: [USMA:44174] RE: Downsizing beer glasses I would tend to believe Pat's explanation. I'm sure everyone else does too. All you have said is that beer CAN be sold in oversized glasses. This does not mean it is. You also say that one CAN ask for a top up. Again that doesn't mean people do. Somehow overfilling a glass so it over runs the brim doesn't sound right. It makes for mess and makes the glass slippery, making it easier to drop and cause a hazard. Also, product is wasted and that can add up to liters of lost beer that goes down the drain. Who pays for that? You just don't want to accept that when you ask for a pint, you are only getting 500 mL of liquid, not a milliliter more. Maybe now you would like to discuss how wine and spirits are sold in rounded metric sizes in UK pubs. Of course a pro-choice person such as yourself would never order such items for fear of having to utter the word milliliter. Jerry From: Stephen Humphreys <[email protected]> To: U.S. Metric Association <[email protected]> Sent: Saturday, March 28, 2009 8:39:55 PM Subject: [USMA:44168] RE: Downsizing beer glasses Pints in the UK can be served in oversized glasses (showing pint markings) or with 'brim' amounts. You can go back to ask for it to be topped up if you think that the pint is not a legal pint. In reality the bar server tends to pour beer into a glass so it overruns the side - giving you the full pint. I've never seen a pint as small as 500ml. Ever. 'Heady' drinks are poured in a specific way - eg Guinness. There's a 'knack'. Esp in the case of guinness the white head forms part of the 'experience'. Sometimes a shamrock is 'drawn' into the head. In some areas of Northern Ireland this is seen as 'politically incorrect' ;-) . Drinks like cider and lager tend to be headless and don't have the same issue. I would suspect cider and lager are the most asked pint style drinks. Some pubs are now doing 'third' pint drinks now. My favourite one is. From: [email protected] To: [email protected] Subject: [USMA:44162] Downsizing beer glasses Date: Sun, 29 Mar 2009 07:16:44 +1100 On 2009/03/29, at 2:45 AM, Jeremiah MacGregor wrote: I'm sure Pat can tell us that the pint is still spoken in pubs in Australia, but no one would use it to mean a specific amount and thus the term has become generic. Dear Jerry, Sadly, it is true that the word, pint, is still used in Australian hotels. And it is still used, as it is in the UK, to hide a long period of downsizing by the beer companies in collusion with government consumer affairs officials. Let me explain what I mean. Years ago when a pint was served in an Australia or UK hotel or pub, the beer was served in a 22 ounce container to allow for a pint of beer and for a suitable 'head' of froth. Likewise a half pint of beer was served in an 11 ounce container to allow for the 10 ounce half pint and the appropriate head. Some time ago, in the order of 50 years I suspect, lobbyists from the beer companies were able to convince legislators (or was it regulation writers) that a pint of beer could be served in a pint container that held a pint of water when filled to the brim of the glass. The law makers suitably rolled over like little puppies to get their tummies tickled and, in both Australia and the UK, if you asked for 'a pint of beer' in the last 50 years you would have received very close to 500 millilitres of beer with about 70 millilitres of 'head'. I leave to others to calculate this roughly 10 % gain in profits by the beer companies deceit over this period of time. The next part of the campaign, as I observe it in the 21st century, is to downsize the beer glass from a pint (568 mL) to a rounded 500 mL glass. Naturally to do this the beer companies will need to reduce the size of the 'beer pint' even further. The Guinness company has already begun this process with their 440 mL can designed with enough beer to fit into a glass that holds 500 mL of air to the brim of the glass before you pour in the 440 mL of beer and the 60 mL of froth. I have noticed that this campaign has, so far, been tried in Australia and in Singapore. To answer Jerry's question a little more directly, it seems to me that the use of the word 'pint', and its continued encouragement and support by beer companies, is to maintain the illusion that drinkers are getting more beer that they actually receive. As a side issue, the word 'pint' is a relative to the word 'paint' from the time that Roman soldiers demanded that a paint mark be used on the side of (opaque ?) beer containers so that drinkers could check that the level of liquid beer was 'up to the paint'. Paint was gradually changed over the last 2000 years to the word, 'pint'. But you will note that the rapaciousness of beer makers and sellers is not a new thing! Cheers, Pat Naughtin PO Box 305 Belmont 3216, Geelong, Australia Phone: 61 3 5241 2008 Metric system consultant, writer, and speaker, Pat Naughtin, has helped thousands of people and hundreds of companies upgrade to the modern metric system smoothly, quickly, and so economically that they now save thousands each year when buying, processing, or selling for their businesses. Pat provides services and resources for many different trades, crafts, and professions for commercial, industrial and government metrication leaders in Asia, Europe, and in the USA. Pat's clients include the Australian Government, Google, NASA, NIST, and the metric associations of Canada, the UK, and the USA. See http://www.metricationmatters.com/for more metrication information, contact Pat at [email protected] or to get the free 'Metrication matters' newsletter go to: http://www.metricationmatters.com/newsletter to subscribe. Share your photos with Windows Live Photos – Free. 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