A Unique Experience

“Choosing a beer glass is as important as choosing a wine glass,” said Brian Johnson, owner of BJ Willy’s Restaurant and Pub in West Linn, Oregon. “The right beer glass actually brings out specific flavors and aromas of a particular brew.”

The kind of glass you use helps control elements like portion size, serving temperature, and the visual presentation, which includes color and aroma. With the right glass, drinking your favorite beer becomes a unique experience.

It’s All In Your Head

One of the most important elements regarding the beer glass involves what kind of head develops inside of it. The right beer glass allows for suitable head retention and the release of volatiles. Volatiles are compounds that, when they evaporate, give beer its distinct aroma and flavor. The bigger the head, the better the beer since the head is what traps the volatiles inside the glass.

A Few Choices

Putting beer in the proper glass will help it to breathe, like wine, and the glass you choose depends on the style of beer. “A basic guideline is the stronger the beer, the smaller the glass,” Brian told me on my recent trip. The different styles of beer glass include:

Goblet
A goblet is basically a big bowl, similar to a tulip glass or snifter. The portion of heavy or malty beer should fit nicely inside of it.

Mug or Stein
This kind of beer glass has a lot of room for beer, with a wide opening and stout handle. Made of thick glass, it’s perfect for clinking together and singing loudly with beer buddies.

Pilsner flute
This attractive beer glass is tall and slender, with an inverted cone shape for maximum aroma.

Weizen
Similar to a Pilsner, this glass is wide in the middle and narrow at the top and made for drinking wheat beer. The Weizen helps the drinker focus on the beer’s aroma, carbonation and stout head.

Pint glass
A pint glass is like a pair of sneakers in the fashion world – they work, but they don’t look particularly fantastic. The basic pint glass is widest at the top and tapers down, holding 16 and 20 ounces. It’s a favorite because it’s durable, sturdy and good for many kinds of beer. For a slight change, try a British-style pint glass, which bulges near the top and adds to your beer-drinking experience. The beers to be enjoyed in a pint glass include pale ales, bitters, porters and stouts.

This list isn’t exhaustive, especially if you drink beer in Europe. Countries like Belgium match particular kinds of beer with specially-made glasses. The logos on both the bottle and glass also match, providing consumers with optimal beer enjoyment.

Beer Glass Myths

While talking with Brian at BJ Willy’s, I was surprised by the number of myths about beer glasses that I had believed to be true.

• Don’t freeze a beer glass. If you freeze the mug before pouring, the condensation will melt and water down your beer.
• Don’t tilt the glass. The more head, the better. If you want to release some carbonation before drinking, pour a bit and let the head foam and settle, then pour some more.
• Not all beers are best cold. Like wine, different beers are better at different temperatures. Stronger beers should be served warmer than weaker ones, and the darker the beer, the warmer it can be to maximize flavor. Set it out on the countertop for about ten minutes before serving.
• Beer glasses do not go in the dishwasher. For best results, hand-wash and air dry.

The next time you head out for pizza and a refreshing brewed beverage, try requesting a particular glass – see if you notice a difference!

Kelly Wilson is a freelance writer and author of Live Cheap and Free! Strategies to Thrive in Tough Economic Times. You can read more about saving money at www.wilsonwrites.com.

Fine crystal glassware by Anton Kusak.

Kusack Fine Crystal came into being with the dreams of a young man from Moravia who traveled to the city of Seattle.

This youthful glassmaker had a vision about what he wanted to do. Glassware and cut crystal was his passion.

Anton Kusak believed that great designs and a superior quality product would be a hit and that it would give he and his wife and family the lifestyle that they wanted from America.

His product was notably superior in both design and craftsmanship and Kusak Fine Crystal was a success not only in Seattle, but the  world over.

The company is still family owned and operated, having prospered under the auspices of the father, then the son, for nearly fifty years, and today it is run by the original glassmakers grandson, Chuck, since the mid seventies.

Kusack glass vase.

Their commitment to excellence in what they make and cut hasn’t diminished an ounce over the years and Kusak Fine Crystal is noted the world over for the quality of the crystal stemware, glassware and lamps they offer, but what truly struck us was the magnificence of the chandeliers that are produced here.

Kusak chandelier

While they are of course a bit more costly, take a look at what your money is buying..not just the sparkle of the crystal … the elegance of any room in which it resides, but a little piece of history too.

Of course Kusak also produces the most beautiful crystal stemware, wine serving sets, and amazing vases, each lovingly cut and beautifully styled.

The elegance of the pieces speaks for  itself and they will in fact be the collectors items you’ve been looking for given the craftsmanship.

If you’re in the market for something new and exciting, take a look at Kusak Fine Crystal.

 Libbey Glass Company began their business life named the New England Glass Company.
They produced a wide variety of glassware, and in the end expanded their business to sheet glass and windshields, but are more widely known for their cut glass and shaped drinking glasses.

The company was, in the beginning producing multiple items including mercury glass, colored art glass, pressed glass, and a wide array of things like doorknobs and railroad lamps.
The glassware of the Libbey company was quite often decorated with gilding but was  also  decorated with cutting and engraving as well, making it well sought after.

Though the products were quality,  the company found itself in over their heads financially and was sold in 1877 to William Libbey, and was renamed accordingly, and when the purchaser passes away just five years later, it was passed along to his son.

 Edward Libbey moved production to Toledo, Ohio in 1888, where raw materials were readily available and was instrumental in making Toledo Ohio synonymous with glass production.

It was also at this point that the company became more lucrative, with the invention of a machine that could do a great deal of the world.. Workers were fired and the company, while popular, became less so in the immediate area.

(excerpted from History of Ohio )" The Libbey Glass Company became even more profitable after Michael Owens, an inventor from Newark, Ohio, joined the firm. Owens developed a machine that could automatically produce bottles, tumblers, and glass chimneys. This invention dramatically increased production. It also lowered manufacturing costs, as the company was able to fire workers now that machines could do the work instead."

The sword under the  old signature in Libbeys glass mark is their silent nod to the renowned city of steel,  Toledo, Spain, from which the name of the city in Ohio originates.

Libbey hired Joseph Locke in 1882, who was a designer from England to take over the design works and while he worked at Libbey he patented several items that are quite collected .  Some of those items include Peach Blow, Maize and Pomona,as well as Amberina, the Victorian era glass that offers the very distinctive amber to red shading as its trademark

 Libbey produced it  right up to the new century.
 It was a difficult type of glass to make since the red shading came from the use of actual gold and it was costly to make, making it quite expensive to produce, but it did give the company recognition world wide.
 In the 1920s, Amberina was in production again for a short time, and is signed quite often so the collector can identify it.

Libbey was  also the number one producer of what was called  Brilliant Cut glass from about 1878 to 1915 or 1916.The Brilliant cut was extremely highly leaded, and rumors had it using as much as sixty percent lead in the formula for its creatioin.
Lead softened the glass, making it easier to cut and added sparkle, weight and giving it that wonderful clarity of ring when lightly struck.
At the St. Louis World’s Fair in 1904 the company won prizes for exhibitions of their fine glass.

The war years were slim for everyone and LIbbey stuck to making hard to break glassware for hotels and restaurants, however in about 1933 they began producing fabulous stemware, which today is sought after for collection world wide.

 The designer Douglas Nash, a former Tiffany’s man, was employed to breathe life into the  market for hand crafted high-end stemware.
 Some of the new offerings of the Libbey company that were made under Nash’s tutelage included  the Art Deco  stems, among them American Prestige, Knickerbocker, Syncopation (an ice cube shaped stem, is one of the rarest to find  today), and Embassy. Embassy was an eagle-and-star etch  that was designed especially for the US Pavilion at the ’39 World’s Fair.

The Silhouette line c.1933 by Douglas Nash had a different animal decorating the stem of each type of glass including cats, greyhounds and monkeys, with each different type of glass featuring a different animal.
 The Silhouette glassware stems came with a selection of colors: black, opalescent, or frosted crystal.

The Skyscraper stemsare very collectible and one type of Nash’s designs, the Victoria cameo etch, took more than 80 hours of engraving per glass and sold for about 2000 dollars per dozen glasses. This of course wasn’t a big seller during the depression and production of it ended in 1935.
All of these glasses, including the Brilliant cut are sought after by collectors today and fortunately with the companies mark, can be readily identified.
Libbey glassware has left its mark on collectors and given us a great deal to look for.

Whether you are celebrating a wedding, anniversary, New Year’s Eve or other special occasion, champagne or sparkling wine in fine champagne glasses makes the perfect complement to any celebration.

But what are the right shape, size and brand of champagne glasses to buy? Read on and learn the basics of selecting and buying quality champagne glasses into which to pour your bubbly.

What Type of Champagne Glass to Buy?

What should you look for when buying quality Champagne glasses?

Champagne Flutes

A tall tulip-shaped flute is what most experts suggest you use to serve champagne; the small mouth and tall shape of a champagne flute slows the movement of the bubbles, allowing expensive champagne to retain its effervescence longer and concentrating the aroma better than other shapes.

Typically containing six to eight ounces of champagne, the flute’s narrow opening traps and concentrates the aroma and helps preserve the chill of the wine, whereas a glass with a wide bowl allows the aroma to escape and the wine flatten quickly.

Champagne Saucer or Coupe

While coupes may be sensuous (rumors abound that these wide-bowled champagne glasses were originally cast from the breasts of various famous women), they don’t make the best glasses for sipping fine champagne or sparking wines!

For many people, the image of a champagne glass is all wrong; the wide mouth saucer or coupe shape bowl is actually to be avoided! A wide bowl lets all the bubbles escape and your sparkling wine or expensive French champagne goes flat and warms up very quickly with a lot of surface area.

Sparkling Wine Glasses

Over the years, a number of unique shapes and playful designs have evolved in the world of sparkling wine glasses. Some of the more popular styles of sparkling wine glasses enable the stem to be filled as well as the bowl or flute.

Once consumed only on very special occasions, only wines crafted in the champagne region of France qualify as true champagnes, today you can find any number of superior sparkling wines from around the world and sparkling wines have become extremely popular in recent years. Many people prefer a sparkling wine or champagne over other wines these days, even for everyday enjoyment.

If design and appearance are more important to you than pure function, then these designer-oriented sparkling wine glasses can be a nice addition to your stemware collection, but the fact that your hands warm the sparkling wine more quickly when the stem is filled may outweigh the nice look some of these glasses!

Champagne Flutes concentrate the flavor and aroma of a Champagne or sparkling wine, making it the ideal shape.

Crystal or Glass Champagne Glasses?

The question often comes up whether crystal or glass is the better choice when selecting glassware for champagne and sparkling wine. Glass contains a mixture of sand, soda ash, marble, dolomite, potash and borax. These elements are heated to approximately 105ºC (221ºF) to create a molten batch of glass.

Crystal is made by adding lead oxide to the batch (24% or more of the batch will be lead in this case), making it tougher than regular glass. The lead content makes a glass appear to be more ‘sparkly’ since it is more refractive than normal glass. The irony is that since lead crystal glassware costs more, people will tend to treat it with more care than regular glassware, despite the fact that it is actually more durable!

Champagne Glass Storage and Care

First of all, if you do purchase fine crystal champagne or sparkling wine glasses, use them! You don’t have to treat them any differently than other glassware. Wash your glasses soon after using them and hand dry to prevent clouding or water marks.

You can put them in the dishwasher but hand washing is fine; the main thing is to be sure the glasses are rinsed thoroughly and hand dried with a lint-free linen towel to keep them clean and free of streaks or water marks.

Never expose your fine champagne glasses to rapid changes in temperature as this could damage them; for instance if you just took them out of the hot dishwasher and put them into the freezer you’d be asking for trouble. Champagne glasses should be used at room temperature and not chilled in a freezer or ice bucket anyway!

Chilling and Pouring Champagne

A good sparkling wine or champagne is best enjoyed well chilled; ideally, you want to pour from the bottle at 7 ºC (43 to 48 ºF). Any colder and you’ll miss out on the complex aroma and taste, much warmer and you’ll be really disappointed.

Don’t chill the glasses though; just the bottle before you uncork it; don’t leave it in the freezer … an ice bucket is the best way to chill champagne to get the right balance of the alcohol.

Tilt your champagne flute when you pour to prevent building up a ‘head’; unlike good beer, the sugars and alcohol in a fine sparkling wine is best appreciated with the bubbles in the liquid not let to escape by pouring too quickly from bottle into glass.

Best Brands in Champagne and Sparkling Wine Glasses

Spiegelau – a top name in stemware, Kristallglasfabrik Spiegelau GmbH offers a wide range of wine glasses well known throughout the wine world. Look for their popular 2 piece Champagne Flute set in the Festival line or the Adina Champagne glass with a wider bowl still shaped correctly for fine bubbly! You can find Spiegelau’s Vino Grande Champagne Flutes, Set of 6 for $50 USD.

Riedel – for any wine connoisseur the Riedel name is synonymous with fine crystal stemware and their extensive “Champagnerglas” selection is truly impressive. The sky is the limit with Riedel of Austria, from reasonably priced glass and crystal all the way to their “if you have to ask you can’t afford it” premium lines. Look for the Riedel Ouverture Champagne Glasses, Set of 4 in the $40 range USD. For something really special, you might go for the Riedel Vinum Champagne/Prestige Cuvee Glasses, Set of 6 in the $130 range USD!

Schott Zwiesel – A quality brand, Zwiesel of Germany offers fine quality stemware for sparkling wines. Look for the Schott Zwiesel Diva Tritan Crystal Champagne Flutes, Set of 6 in the $60 to $70 range USD.

Bormioli Rocco – You’ll find the Bormioli Rocco Party Flute Stemware, Set of 4, Gift Boxed for about $25 USD.

Dartington Crystal – The Dartington Crystal Wine Master Champagne Glass Pair 6.7 ounce, 9.3 inch tall will set you back about $50 USD.

The serious enthusiast would no more likely drink fine red wine from a chardonnay glass than to drink Two Buck Chuck!

The three components of a wine glass are the bowl, the stem and the foot. Bowl size and shape are crucial to the perception of bouquet and flavor. The stem is also important since you want to hold a wine glass by its stem in order to maintain the wine’s temperature.

Wine Glass Materials and Manufacturing Techniques

A fine wine glass should be made with lead crystal, which has a high index of refraction to enhance the visual effect of the wine when holding the glass up to a light.

The thickness of the lip is another measure of the quality of a wine glass. If the glass is blown, it will have a thinner lip than one that is cut or fused.

Blown glass offers the finest in stemware for wine tasting and drinking, with the crème de le crème hand blown crystal wine glasses selling for $100 USD or more. Machine blown stemware is more moderately priced and offers close to the same quality, if less prestige, for as little as $10 to $60 USD.

A high quality wine glass is made of lead crystal or crystal and the shape and size of the bowl is designed to enhance the particular varietal being poured.

Bowl Size and Shape

Size and shape are determined by the varietal to be consumed and the specific characteristics to be emphasized. A larger, wider bowl size is desirable for heavier reds and smaller, narrower bowls are typically to pour whites. Fluted glasses are reserved for sparkling wines and Champagnes.

Glassmakers and vintners have spent centuries to perfect the shape of a wine glass for a given varietal and each maker will claim that theirs delivers wine to the right part of the palette more effectively than the next.

And, while the ability of a correctly shaped bowl definitely focuses the bouquet, it is less likely that to have any real benefit in “targeting” the taste buds and you can assume this is mostly, if not entirely, marketing hype!

A wine glass should never have an opening that is wider than the widest part of its bowl; to do so would let the aroma escape the glass.

Rarely would you see a connoisseur drink wine from a frosted or colored wine glass since you would not do anything to alter the distinct color and clarity of a fine wine, which are important characteristics by which a the quality of the wine is determined.

Notable makers of the highest quality crystal wine glasses include:

Riedel – perhaps the best known maker of quality wine glasses, this Austrian glassmaker has several lines of wine glass stemware, ranging from $10 or $20 at the low end to as much as $60 or $70 for glasses in Riedel’s high end lines.

Baccarat – maker of the some of the world’s finest crystal stemware, you can pay as much as $150 to $200 for Baccarat glasses, so save your pennies if you’re considering these as an addition to your collection!

More affordable, yet quality wine glass makers include:

Spiegelau - modeled after the Riedel stemware, but lesser quality crystal wine glasses in the range of $10 to $15.

Cantina Arredo – Italian maker offering high quality stemware wine glasses between $6 and $10 each.

Schott Zwiesel – about $15 each.

Villeroy & Bosch – run about $25 each.

Quality wine glasses will add to your enjoyment of a fine wine.