Anyone remember the "Lady's" Glass?

When I first moved to England twenty odd years ago, I encountered something new. OK, I encountered a lot new, like zone tickets, cod, pints of bitter, parsnips, barm cakes, women who didn't wear woolly jumpers all the time, pubs with a best room, tombola, Eccles cakes, Chinese chippies, Birken'ead, footie (not fitbaw), Greenall Whitley, Higson's Bitter, The Docker's Club, Woolybacks, Derek Hatton and Militant, roast ox heart, pasties, lolly-ices and a shed load of scallies, but I also ran in to the phenomenon called the "lady's glass".

When you took your young woman (or anyone else's) to the pub in those days and asked for a pint and a half, the barperson would invariably ask "is the half in a lady's glass?". If you replied in the affirmative, the half pint came in a goblet. This practice may have been peculiar to Liverpool, I don't know. I think though it was more widespread than that, but it was a long time ago. Certainly by the time I moved to Manchester twenty years ago, it didn't happen there and doesn't happen now.

The Beautiful Beer beer people, have twenty years later re-invented this particular scouse wheel by introducing a tulip shaped glass for half pints, though in these politically correct days, they are unisex. The glass is aimed at women and men for certain occasions, such as drinking with a meal, as an alternative to the default "slim-jim" half pint glass.

Marketing manager Gareth Douglas said: “We felt the Beautiful Beer glass created a more stylish image of beer, making customers feel better about their choice of drink, and the pub itself." I am sure that is just why it was done in Scousely all these years ago, when I were a lad, but to be applauded just the same!

I am firmly of the ilk that believes that while you can't make a silk purse out of a sow's ear, you can present beer better and make the experience thus more enjoyable. Good move!