What do you call "proper glassware"?

As long as it's clean, its okay. But I prefer pint glasses for easier drinking, less complicated beers and tulips/snifters for more intensely flavored beers. The only glass I always pair with a specific style is my tall pilsner glass, and that's just because it's fun.

 

Oh, one more thing: Never plastic.

 

I think using the correct glass for the style comes first with company or specific beer labeling as "extra proper." This may be most true for historical styles for me. Drink a west coast or NE IPA out of what makes you happy. I'm going to pour an Marzen into a krug every single time, if I'm at home. Same thing goes for Belgian & English styles going into "historically accurate?" glassware. All that said, maybe proper is what adds to your enjoyment. I won't judge.

 

I'd say this is subjective, but I think all IPAs belong in the Nonic Pint Glass.

 

For me proper glassware is defined by type of glass by style, but also with the appropriately branded glass.

- 3F Geueze in a 3F Geueze glass
- Founders KBS in a Founders snifter
- Yazoo Embrace The Funk beer in Branded tulip
- Hofbrauhaus in a 1 litre mug

You get the picture.

 

Clean without cracks, chips or holes and big enough to hold a pint and get my honker in there

 

I call it overrated. If you feel the need to enhance the beer just use a white wine glass.

 

As long as it's made of glass, it's proper.

 

Basically any glass that's clean fits the bill for me. That said, at home I typically use my Duvel Tulips, or some other random branded tulips/snifters.

 

I use a can glass because I like canned beer better. This way every beer I drink is in a can technically.

 

An unbranded glass of the correct type is the right choice..

 

I much prefer Imperial pint glasses. Even with a short pour (for big beers), the Imperial pint gives you room for plenty of head and lots of space above for presenting the aroma.

Most of the time I use Imperial pint pub glasses, either the English nonic-style or the Irish sort-of tulip style (similar to the Guinness glass, but not branded). (As an aside, I've read that the "nonic" name originally was "no nick" - a bar glass that would be stacked without nicking the lip... IDK if that is more-or-less true or just a fanciful tale...)

I have some pint-sized wine glasses that I will use for BA beers and other highly aromatic stouts and the like. These are fairly rugged glasses.

I have some Total Wine-branded pilsener glasses (free with the store opening) that I will use occasionally for lagers. They are pint size, and as said by @akolb, it is fun (and pretty) to put a pilsener or other light-colored, highly carbonated lager into the tall pilsener glass.

I have a few branded shaker pints that don't get used, a branded modified shaker pint (it has some curve to the sides... I don't know if this style has a name) that I will use with that brand of beer sometimes, and I have a couple of branded Stella Artois stem glasses that I rarely use.

 

If you go to any bar in Europe they all (for the most part) use the correct style and branded glass for each beer.

 

JMO, but as with the pilsener glass, I think most of the "style-specific" glassware is more for visual appreciation than anything else. This is especially true of the thistle for Scottish ales - a national symbol in a glass - and the Spiegelau glasses for specific styles (e.g. the IPA "Michelin Man" glass, the stout wide-bottom glass, the wheat beer glass - basically a bigger top and smaller bottom stout glass...). They are very visually attractive with the "proper" beer in them, but the arguments made about how they improve the drinking experience itself beyond visual appeal is, well, mostly nonsense compared with style-generic glassware (such as tulip, snifter, nonic, etc.). Again, JMO.

 

The one with beer in it

 

Most of my beers get poured into a tulip or a nonic pint. On the off chance I drink a pilsner I use the style-appropriate glass. My lone snifter was recently broken and I've yet to replace it. Matching brand to beer is fun but non essential, of course.

 

Most of all tulip glasses, sometimes a snifter.

 

A standard pint glass is the "proper" glassware for 90% of the beers I drink. A tulip glass for the rest.

 

If anyone is really interested in glassware, there is a discussion of glassware on his website at: https://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/101/glassware/

I also discuss glassware on my website at: http://www.romancingthefoam.com/Beer Glasses Page 1.html