What are you drinking?

The way you pour beer depends on what you’re drinking.  There are three types of beer: lager, pilsner, and wheat beer (weissbier – there are 3 of them, some with more yeast than others), and each one of them is poured differently.

The foam

You want a nice head with German beer.   Around 1.5 inch head of foam is standard in Germany, where a beer without foam is wrong. Beer should look appetizing, and a beer with a very small amount of foam is not appetizing.   Most German glasses have markings showing where to fill the glass to: if you fill it all the way to the top of the glass, and the little bit of foam melts, you’ve given away too much beer.

The Yeast

German weissbiers have chunks of yeast on the bottom, which you shouldn’t let go to waste.  Loosen that yeast and pour it into your glass with the rest of the beer.

No fruit!

Germans don’t put fruit in beer. The only exception is kristallweizen, which needs a lemon.

The three finger rule

This means that the foam should be about three finger’s width from the top down. The next three fingers should be the beer you drink.  The last three fingers should be tossed out because if you’re drinking from a big stein or glass (like a liter), the last three fingers will be warm by the time you get to drink them.

Never mix your beer!

Don’t pour your old beer into your new beer.

How to pour a wheat beer

Wheat beer and pilsner beer are more “explosive” than lagers (more carbonated). So, you need to pour it at an angle, or with the bottle inside of the glass, and pour it slowly.

  1. Tilt the weissbier glass much more than 45 degrees, holding it almost horizontally.
  2. Slowly place the bottle’s neck into the glass.
  3. Tilt the bottle up — the tip should be inside of the liquid while you pour it slowly. Pouring it slowly is imperative.  The highly carbonated beer will otherwise explode into a foamy disaster!
  4. Pull the bottle out slowly, once you have filled up the glass with about two thirds of the beer.
  5. Pour the rest a little faster to create a head of foam.
  6. Don’t pour the entire bottle into the glass. Keep some liquid in the bottle to loosen up the yeast at the bottom. The yeast is where the flavor is, so roll the bottle on the table to loosen the yeast, or swivel the bottle in circles.
  7. Pour the yeast into the glass.

How to pour a pilsner

For all beers, you want a nice foamy head
  1. Hold the glass tilted at a 45 degree angle.
  2. Pour the beer quickly, but stop when you have poured a little over half of the bottle’s contents into the glass.
  3. Let the foam settle for a bit (best is a minute).
  4. Pour a little more, let the foam settle, keep repeating until the bottle is empty. In Germany, it’s said that a good pilsner takes seven minutes to pour.  The typical pilsner in Germany is a seven minute pilsner, but that’s from a tap. You won’t find anybody in the United States, who has the patience for a seven minute pilsner.

How to pour a lager

Basically, you put the whole bottle into the glass, but with a lager you only want to put the tip of the bottle into the glass. Lagers can be poured quickly because they are less carbonated.

  1. Tilt the glass to a 45 degree angle.
  2. Rest the tip of the bottle into the glass.
  3. Pour the beer fast, in a steady stream down the side of the glass.
  4. Start straightening the glass when it is approximately two thirds full, which creates a nice head of foam.
  5. Let the foam settle for a few seconds.