A Glass of beer

Firstly, a link. Jeff Pickthall posted a nice little amusing video done with animation of Lego figures. Now, its funny, but perhaps slightly bawdy, which makes me feel guilty especially as I've shown it to my nearly teenage offspring. As a responsible alcohol retailer I should be ashamed of my amusement at childish glorification of alcohol.

Or should I? No, of course not. I do try and run a respectable establishment and apart from the occasional mishap after 2 pints of Zippy Red¹, there is very little trouble at my pub². But every pub is different. Every publican sets their own standards and style of operation. Every location attracts a different trade and the property operator has to decide the style that works best. Town centre pubs are always going to attract a more boisterous trade. The Friday and Saturday night revellers, the people who have worked hard all week, the people who look forward to this as part of their leisure.

But, there is one thing, apart from alcohol, that links me with nearly every pub on the town centre circuit of pubs - glasses. Nobody likes to drink out of plastic if they didn't have to, every pub will serve beer in glasses and so they should. But lets look a little deeper at why the idea of plastic drinking vessels is so bizarre.

Imagine the government manages to mandate the use of plastic drinking vessels. Where will the line be drawn? Restaurants, presumably, will be fine. I'm guessing, and hoping, that nice country residential and food led pubs will be left alone. The government won't get away with every licenced property being banned from using glass. So presumably either troublesome establishments, or areas will be targeted.

It makes me wonder, does all this ring fencing of problem areas simply further divide the nice places from the rubbish? Are we going to find even more so that the no go areas become more so as stigmatised properties become even more rubbish and so need to attract the difficult trade to survive. If I'm dubious about a place, I'm going to be even more dubious about it if I know it only uses plastic glasses. After all, a pissed up nutter can probably find a weapon in nearly anything that's not screwed down.

An interesting side issue: I'm trying to find a suitable glass for serving a Witbier in. Although I can get some nice looking glasses it is almost impossible to find one that is a pint. I've got Blanche de Bruxelles draft on the bar, but serving that in a shaker makes it look boring.

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¹You know who you are, although I maintain it's the gallon you had before the Zippy Red that caused the problem. I promise, your secret is safe with me.

²Which is probably the reason for quite a few of the bad reports about me out there on the Internet. If somebody behaves in an inappropriate way in my pub, they tend to get to know what I think - bad luck. More publicans should do it.