‘Woke scientists want to shrink your PINT”! So read one of the more hysterical headlines last week about a study that removed pint glasses from several licensed premises in England and replaced them with two-thirds serves (dropping the prices accordingly). The study found that punters bought almost 10% less beer when pints weren’t available. If adopted nationwide, the researchers concluded, the strategy could reduce alcohol consumption and help tackle obesity.
The Campaign for Real Ale (Camra) immediately went on the offensive. “The difficulty this study faced in even finding pubs to take part shows that the pint is still an in-demand measure for consumers at the bar,” said Ash Corbett-Collins, Camra’s chair. “With less than 1% of venues approached for the study agreeing to trial the smaller measure, and none of the 12 pubs who did take part choosing to keep the change, the verdict from publicans is clear.”
Camra has a point: researchers asked more than 1,700 venues to take part in the study and managed to persuade just 13 (one was excluded from the results because it continued to sell pints alongside two-thirds measures). Were the researchers surprised that so few pubs wanted to get involved? “I was surprised that we were able to run the study at all,” says Eleni Mantzari, a senior research associate from the Behaviour and Health Research Unit at the University of Cambridge. “When we spoke to pubs and bars pre‑Covid, none wanted to take part. People don’t want to mess with the pint!”
They certainly don’t. I ask Pete Brown, the author of several books about beer and pubs, what he thinks about the study. “I was shaking with anger when I heard about it,” he replies. I laugh – but he isn’t joking. “Pubs are on their knees. We’re losing two pubs a day. As if we hadn’t got enough to worry about, now they’re coming for our pints,” he says.
Mantzari – a pint-drinker herself – denies this. She explains that there is not a lot of evidence about the impact of serving sizes when it comes to alcohol, but there is lots of research into food portions. “Larger portion sizes are linked to obesity. When portion sizes are smaller, consumption is lower,” she says. Regarding beer, “we just wanted to get the evidence. It’s up to the people in charge what they do with it.”
Mantzari spoke to managers and owners from the participating pubs at the end of the study to find out how customers had reacted. “People didn’t tend to order two halves on the spot,” she says. “Some venues got complaints – mostly those outside London and mostly from older men. The complaints subsided over time, whether because people got used to the two-thirds, or because they knew the pints were coming back.”
Spring 2023, when the study took place, was one of the few times when pints were unavailable in British pubs (lockdown was another; the 2020s have so far been a tough decade for the pint). “British people have consumed beer in measurements called pints for centuries, but they might not always have contained the amount of liquid we now know as an imperial pint,” says Jane Peyton, founder of the School of Booze. “Clause 35 of the Magna Carta [issued in 1215] concerns weights and measures for ale, wine and corn.”
The pint measure was introduced legally by the Ale Measures Act 1698, says the beer writer Roger Protz, before being standardised 200 years ago at 568ml (20 fl oz) by the Weights and Measures Act 1824. Today, pubs must legally serve pints and halves. One-thirds and two-thirds can also be served, but pubs aren’t obliged to offer them.
It is not just the pint’s long history that makes its supporters so protective, however. “The pint is a quintessentially British thing and it’s bound with another British institution: the pub,” says Sophie Atherton, Britain’s first female beer sommelier. “Both are truly part of our culture. Visitors from abroad want to have a pint of beer in a pub to feel they are experiencing Britain to the full.”
For Brown, it goes further still. “The pint is symbolic. ‘Fancy a pint?’ doesn’t just mean ‘come to consume some alcohol’. When we praise someone, we say: ‘They’re the kind of person you can have a pint with,’ or: ‘I’d like to buy them a pint.’” Fair enough – “I’d like to buy them a two-thirds” doesn’t have quite the same ring …
Yet it is also true that a pint is a large volume of liquid – one of the biggest beer serves in the world. “Hotter countries tend to drink smaller measures,” says Brown. “If it’s 35C, you don’t want a pint – it warms up too quickly. In Australia, the schooner [three-quarters of a pint] is common. In Spain, it’s the caña [about 200ml] – but you’ll have several.”
Even colder countries tend to have smaller measures, he concedes. “The Czech and Polish serves are 500ml, but have a bigger head. In the US, it’s a 16oz pint compared with our 20oz.” Peyton mentions France, where the demi (250ml) is a common draught option, and beer-loving Belgium, where glass shapes and sizes are matched to the beer and range from 200ml to 500ml. Germany, with its litre steins, is one of the few countries with a standard serve larger than Britain’s pint.
Defenders of the pint point out that, traditionally, British beer is weak. “There used to be a marketing slogan that described beer as ‘the best long drink in the world’ and I always thought that was spot on,” says Atherton. (It was the slogan of the Brewers Society in the 1950s.) “Beer is a long drink that lasts, not something to be tipped down your neck in a flash. Even at today’s prices, it’s good value for money, because it takes time to drink it.”
Brown couldn’t agree more. “The British pint is just the right size for the strength of the beer we drink: 3.5% to 4.5%. It delivers the right amount of alcohol over a long time. Pints allow you to spend a long time in the pub – one pint can last a couple of hours if you want it to. You can linger over it, read a book, chat to your mates … If you want to get pissed, drink shots. It’s different in the US, where beer is stronger and the pint is smaller.” He is referring to British bitter, but even lager is weaker in the UK, says Protz. “Continental lagers brewed under licence here are lower in alcohol than their European versions in Belgium and France.”
Admittedly, the proliferation of craft breweries in Britain in the past decade has resulted in some stronger beers; all the beer lovers I speak to see a place for two‑third and even one-third glasses for those. Peyton says: “In craft beer pubs where there is a big range of higher ABV beers, people often want to try a few, so having smaller‑sized glasses is a good way of doing that.”
I love the occasional flight of beer – typically three one-third measures. Even Camra is in favour. “Camra supports a range of measures being available to the customer in pubs, social clubs and taprooms,” said Corbett-Collins in the group’s statement. “This reflects the varied offering at the bar, from a third-pint of strong and hefty imperial stout to a pint of refreshing and sessionable golden ale.”
Again, the pub is crucial. “Some people seem to have the idea that pint-drinking equates to getting drunk, and an unhealthy relationship with alcohol, but that’s not what I’ve seen over the many decades I’ve been going to the pub,” says Atherton. “That’s the important thing here: pints and pubs go together. A good landlady or landlord knows when someone has had too much and stops serving them.”
Despite our large serving size, the UK is down in 28th in the global league of the biggest beer drinkers, with 66.8 litres consumed per capita annually, according to World Population Review. The Czech Republic is way out in front, at 140.1 litres, while Spain, despite its little cañas, is up in eighth (81.2 litres).
Nor does the UK have the worst rates of alcoholism. “In parts of eastern and central Europe, where you might order a bottle of vodka with a round of beers, it’s a bigger problem,” says Brown. The stats seem to back that up, with Hungary, Russia, Belarus, Latvia, Slovenia, Poland, Slovakia and Estonia all in the top 10 list of countries with the highest rates of alcohol-use disorder and alcoholism, according to the World Health Organization. The UK is 19th on the list.
“About 57% of Britons drink on a regular basis. A tiny percentage suffer alcohol-related harm,” says Brown. “The more affluent you are, the more you’re likely to drink. But the poorer you are, the more likely you are to suffer alcohol-related harm.”
Atherton says: “I think we’re experiencing something of a new-age temperance movement, which pushes the idea that pints and pubs are the root of problem drinking. This is nonsense, because the pint isn’t the problem. It’s much more likely that the availability of cheap booze, especially from the supermarket, is what encourages unhealthy and problematic levels of drinking. A pint in the pub is usually about 4% ABV and costs £5 or £6, but you can get a bottle of 11% wine in the supermarket for less than a fiver. A pint won’t get most adults drunk, but a bottle of wine probably will.”
Neither Brown nor Atherton wish to minimise the harm alcohol can cause. Last year, Brown’s younger brother died of illnesses related to alcoholism. “Some people with mental health issues self-medicate with alcohol,” he says. “If alcohol wasn’t available, they’d do it with something else.” Atherton thinks we should be looking at the causes of drinking too much. “I rarely hear about studies asking why people get drunk, why some people are driven to drink daily. What is it about their lives that makes them do that? Stress? Despair? Fear? Perhaps we should be finding out.”
Back to the pint: are its days numbered? “We’re all diversifying what we’re drinking. More people are drinking pints, but they’re doing it less often, because they’re also drinking wine, gin and cocktails,” says Brown. A small number of pubs shun the traditional pint. For example, the French House in Soho, central London, has served half-pints only for more than a century (except on 1 April), while my local in north London, the Nicholas Nickleby, serves a “Czech pour”, with a 20% to 25% foam head.
“I try to drink halves and thirds if I’m drinking stronger beer, but I always come back to the pint,” says Brown. Protz also prefers a pint: “I find I drink less and more slowly if I have a pint. I doubt it will be overtaken by other sizes. It’s seen as part of the British way of life.” Peyton thinks some people will never give up their pints. “Some men insist on drinking beer in pint glasses and nothing smaller,” she says. “They equate the pint glass with masculinity and the half-pint as not being masculine … The pint is here to stay.”
Even Mantzari has no fears for the future of the pint. “Since the study was published, some MPs have said the government is not going to act on it – they don’t want to be the fun police. I think the pint is safe.”
