The days of any-old-pint-glass are far behind us. For craft beer fans, using “proper glassware” means creating a tasting experience that amplifies presentation, aroma, ABV, temperature, and even ergonomics.
Once you spend your precious time selecting the ideal craft beer for your palate, follow these simple glassware tips to make it truly shine!
Make it Beautiful with Branded Glassware: Our first recommendation of a beer style to highlight the aesthetics of the pour — to show off the color of the liquid and highlight the art on the glass — is the hazy, New England-style IPA.
An opaque, Sunny D-hued pour will make the artwork on the glass look well pronounced, especially when the artwork is stenciled — like below, in this matching King’s County Beer Collective beer and glass.
NE-style Hazies are also a great choice for showing off creatively shaped glassware which brings a lot of depth to the beer, as demonstrated by the brew below from Elder Pine Brewing, and from some of our favorite glassware makers, Juan Travolta Glass and PretentiousBeerGlass, that you’ve seen featured on Tavour.
Kick Up Those Aromas a Notch: Warm up your nostrils, because we’re diving into the best glassware to augment a beer’s aromas. With a focus on scent, you’ll want to choose a very fragrant beer style and a glass that will intensify the nose even more.
For beer style, go with a funky Farmhouse Ale — Jester King Brewery and The Ale Apothecary are two exemplary examples of Farmhouse Ale specialists known for bringing the whole barnyard of smells to a brew. Pair your favorite Farmhouse with a teku glass (like The Rare Barrel pictured below). The glassmakers specifically designed the shape to direct maximum aroma potency from the beer to your nose.
Tame Your Booze: In Pour it up: a beer glass breakdown, Stillwell’s Chris Reynolds explains why a snifter is the ideal glass for high ABV brews, like Holy Mountain’s Hand of Glory Barleywine and Cycle Brewing’s Rare DOS Imperial Stout. He points out, “it’s smaller, the bowl shape captures the aroma, and it’s stemmed so you can control its temperature with your hands.”
We can’t think of a better vessel from which to enjoy Epic Brewing’s 12% ABV Big Bad Baptist Imperial Stout.
Get Ready to Chug: While a snifter is fitting for a slow sipper, you’ll want something you can grip easily and pour fast when it comes to a low ABV, crushable brew. Conveniently, one of the most chuggable ales — the Kölsch — comes with its own glass called a stange. Not only is this skinny, science lab vial-looking thing built for a quick grab and slam, it also comes served on a holey tray, perfect for delivering a table’s-worth of Kölsches — making it an excellent choice to toast with and shoot like a shot of liquor.
For a true-to-style example of a Kölsch, try Heater Allen’s bright and clean Das Bier and ask for a round for the table so you can witness the cool carrying tray, shown below.
Buckle-up hopheads! We’re about to take a delectable trip down IPA memory-lane.Coming to us from some of our favorite brew joints around the country, each of these hop-loaded delicacies sport their own level of craft fame. Some grace the pages of Thrillist, Vine Pair, Food & Wine, or the Beer Travel Guide. Others sport out-of-this-world scores on BeerAdvocate, Untappd, and Tavour! So, we’re highlighting a few juice-soaked sippers that have filled Tavour members’ crates and rattled the craft-o-sphere in the best way possible. Here are 10 of the most popular IPAs to ever hit the Tavour app.
Read MoreEvery beer nerd knows there’s a shortlist of Stouts that you can’t pass up. They’re the holiest of grails in the craft beer kingdom — brews that are hard to come by and are among the highest-rated anywhere. The beer nerds that use Tavour have very discerning tastes, and they know immediately when one of these beers stares them in the face. In fact, our members often snatch them all up with lightning speed, so we have to keep bringing them back! If you’re ever eager to try some of these top-rated Stouts, check out the app — you’re practically guaranteed to see these 8 fan favorite, Dark Beer diamonds at least once every year:
Read MoreRemember IBUs? The “International Bitterness Unit” once appeared on beer labels and bar menus everywhere as the globally agreed-upon measurement for how bitter a brew is. But, as you may have noticed, it’s become an increasingly rare sight over the past few years. In fact, there’s a chance you didn’t see a single IBU in your last craft beer delivery, or store trip. There’s a reason for that, and it has a lot to do with how far craft beer has progressed.
Read MorePick and choose your own beers, get them shipped right to your door