Does Your Homebrew Deserve a Spiegelau IPA Glass?

Quite frankly, most beer does not warrant such quality as a Spiegelau IPA glass.

Most beer drinkers are happy to gulp down flavourless lawn-mower beers – beers that are fine for rehydration purposes on a sunny afternoon.

I’m not judging them.

But you don’t need a special glass for a drink churned out for the masses by a Global Drinks Corporation. Swig that stuff straight from the can, without fear of missing out on any subtleties.

However, I’m betting your home-crafted beer is different.

You carefully chose your recipe. You selected the best ingredients. You know how much money’s worth of hops you used during dry-hopping. Quite a bit, am I right?

And you surprised yourself with your patience.

Remember your self-restraint, how you let it mature to perfection, even though you were dying to try it?

And now, you have a veritable hop-bomb. It is bursting with juicy tropical fruit flavour and aroma. Fluffy clouds of foam that last right down to the last mouthful of heaven.

Doesn’t that deserve a proper glass?

The Spiegelau IPA glass was designed in consultation with brewers and cicerones. (Cicerones are professional beer experts, like wine tasters, but less well-known.)

So, what should an IPA glass do?

A modern IPA should be hoppy in flavour and aroma, with a good, long-lasting foam or head. It need not be clear, and in many instances nowadays is positively murky.

It stands to reason an effective IPA glass should be able to accentuate these properties.

So, a Spiegelau IPA glass has the following features:

• A “tulip” form, so beer can be swirled around to release flavours and tapered, to concentrate the aromas from your beer.
• A hollow, ribbed stem. The ribbing on the stem aerates your beer for maximum foam, and ultimate taste. This glass isn’t etched like some of the branded ones in the pub, nor does it need to be.
• Meanwhile, the warmth of your hand on the stem helps to gently release flavours in a way traditional stemmed tulip-style beer glasses don’t.
• The insanely thin glass is still surprisingly durable. (It doesn’t bounce, though.)
• This glass will make the same joyous “ping” as a wine glass at a fine dining establishment. 

So why spend more than the bare minimum on a beer glass?

Unlike most beer drinkers, wine drinkers have long known the power of glassware. A glass that feels “right” in your hand. And an IPA glass that feels delicate and beautifully crafted (like your beer!), upgrades the experience.

Yet this glass genuinely enhances taste, so getting a few of these is a no-brainer.

They’re not especially expensive, but give your beer that little bit of extra presentational polish. Without, might I add, looking poncey and making your friends think you’re a knobhead.

Or if you’re so bothered your mates will mock you, drink your beer out of a Sports Direct mug, I don’t care.

The Spiegelau IPA glass is available on Amazon, and most stockists of quality glassware.