To your point, the official US guideline as set out in the Dietary Guidelines for Americans which is published by the USDA and the HHS sites 14 grams of pure alcohol as a standard drink equivalent. However, they are not citing any research behind how they came up with that number. And according to the trusty Wikipedia site, standard drink sizes are all over the place in the world. Ranging from 10ml to 20ml.
I have a fresh bottle of Mackeson XXX Stout 11.9 oz and a bottle of Old Peculiar 16.9 oz (not found it in cans). I've seen various widget/nitro cans in 14.9 oz.
Where was that brewed? The only bottles I've seen of Mackeson in the last 5 years have been when in the Caribbean on vacation. Those bottles stated they were brewed by Carib in Florida: https://caribbreweryusa.com/our-beers/mackeson/
I forgot that I had a 16 oz. can in my return-for-deposit bag along with the Sullivan's can, so I can do the comparison myself here. And here's a surprise. The 14.9 oz. Sullivan's can is taller that the Bell's 16 oz. can! And they are both the same width. So that widget that's inside the Sullivan's can must be huge to take up that much space regardless that there's 1.1 oz. less liquid in the taller can. Go figure!
Are you willing to 'crack' open that can and take a photo of the widget (with a ruler next to it)? You know, for:
It’s not that big. Sullivan’s uses the style built into the can bottom like you can see on the left of the below pic.
Yeah, that widget is what I see in the bottom when I peek into the opening. The visually estimated dimensions of your pic and the resulting estimated volume numbers don't seem to make sense but I'm not that curious to dig into it further.
Could it be that the nitro head is less dense and contains less liquid beer? If you look at a regular draft beer next to a Guinness at the bar, the nitro head barely settles into liquid. Unlike a normal CO2 driven draft in which roughly a third of the volume of the head settles into liquid.
As a counterpoint: we used to find some classic Californian beers like SNPA, Lagunitas IPA, Sumpin Sumpin ale and many others in their 12oz bottles. That, I likey. Typically bottles here are 330ml not 355ml (which is 12oz) I always enjoy an extra drop.
355 ml = 12 US fl. oz. Many Canadian bottles still retain their old standard, 12 Imperial Ounces = 341 ml. Cans in Canada are 12 US fl oz. Until the 70s, northwest US brewers commonly used in 11 US oz bottles (about 325 ml). But by then the 11 US oz cans had disappeared, and the canned beer was 12 US fl. oz.
What are you upset about? It's a 330 ml bottle, a standard in Europe! 11 US oz is about 325 ml. You could actually be getting a little bonus. US requires volumes between 100 ml and 375 ml to be +/- 3%, so there's some wiggle room no matter what the label says.
I changed my mind and crunched some numbers that apply to the 14.9 oz. can (440 ml) that contained a nitro beer.in comparison to a 16 oz. non-nitro beer can. The 14.9 oz. can is 9.1% taller than the 16 oz. can and therefore has room to contain 17.4 oz., yet it contains 7.4% less beer than the pint can. (The diameters of both cans are equal, so that dimension isn't a factor here.) So 17.4 minus 14.9 means that the space for the 2.5 oz. difference is used for the widget and whatever foam might be in the can.
It's not likely that there is extra space in the can. The cans are usually filled close to the top and foamed to expel air as the can is applied. Extra head space would provide a bigger chance for oxidation. It's not like the corn flakes only filling half the carton. I first saw nitro bottles when Guinness had just introduced them. The bottles were thick, the nitrogen was dissolved directly into the beer. The bar was provided with a "Guinness Gizmo", an ultrasonic bath. The bartender uncapped the bottle,put in into the Gizmo for a half a minute, then poured it out. At the time I thought that new technology could be used for good or evil, and the the nitro Guinness bottles were OK. But I wouldn't mind if canned/bottled nitro beers disappeared entirely.
