These bubbles and foams are crucial for a proper drinking experience for many reasons, but mainly because they are huge tools for aroma (which in itself is a huge tool for perceiving flavor). This is why breweries almost always recommend drinking beer in glasses instead of cans or bottles: your sense of smell is an important part of your taste, and the more you can smell the beer, the better it tastes. Many people (the guilty is guilty) even carry specific beer glasses for a specific beer style, and tulip-shaped glasses ($21) are becoming more and more popular.
Solution
While Budweiser’s training video shows a three-step process that involves one, at home you really only need a sink, a good brush ($14), a proper drying rack ($28), and some lipid-free cleaner ($25) to ensure a permanently gorgeous beer glass. Aside from that, a brush and a few drops of Dawn dish soap ($15) will also solve the problem. Some claim that the lipids (fats) in regular dishwashing soaps mean they don’t work properly, and while it’s easier to use fat-free soaps, I find regular dawn and similar jobs are good too. The key is to rinse.
Photo: Parker Concert Hall
The first step is to rinse any dust or other dry particles in the glass with clean water. Then, use a little detergent and water to pick up the bottle brush and give the glass scrub well, making sure to apply all the surfaces. From there, rinse off the unloved crap from the glass and place it on an elevated drying rack (such as the rack you use to cool the cookies) so that it can drip into the dry quickly and evenly. Once dried, the beer glass can be upside down in the cabinet so that it will no longer be dusty when stored.
Before drinking, just remove the glass, rinse it quickly with water, and pour the beer. The final water rinse (for this purpose you will notice the special spray in the bar) is the key to making sure it is weirdly drying on the glass, then put it on the glass and it also cools the glass a little before pouring it into the beer, which helps over-foaming. By the way: There is nothing wrong with certain styles of refrigerated beer glasses. (I like the same cold Japanese beer on a frozen pint glass as the next guy.) However, you want to keep them as clean as possible, rather than not keeping them before pouring them. It’s harder to have a “beer clean” ice-cold glass than the ice-cold glass you can rinse out of your cabinets and keep in mind what else in the refrigerator to avoid wearing a weird glass.
For laziness
Photo: Parker Concert Hall
If you are as lazy as I am and tend to batch clean things in the dishwasher, you can do the entire “beer cleaning” glass process (including scrubbing and detergent) before pouring in the beer, and then use a dish towel to dry the exterior of the glass.
If you wash beer glasses in the dishwasher (many say don’t, but I’ve always done this with good results), make sure your rinse ($30) container is filled correctly and your dishwasher’s drain is working properly. The flushing agent does a great job of preventing the buildup of hard water over time and can often make it easier to obtain a clean glass. Also, be aware that the logo and paint will eventually wear out in the dishwasher, so wash your hands whatever you really want to save.
If you have glass that you don’t think you can save, then I’m lucky with dedicated brushes and bar friends, which also helps to clean stainless steel appliances. You can also use vinegar (some people use this vinegar instead of the rinser in the dishwasher) to dissolve these hard plaques.
Once your glass is clean and rinsed, it’s time to have a beer: wake up from Sláinte, Kanpai, Na Zdrowie, Gun Bae, Prost, Prost and Bottom!
