Beer, a complete course

Class F4.1

Pour sizes and how to ask

Beer arrives in more sizes than any other drink, most of them are not printed anywhere, and the word pint means two different things depending on which country you are standing in. This is the page the rest of the course points at.

By the end of this class you will be able to

Name every pour size an American bar can serve you, in ounces
Say what a pint is as a unit, and why the glass in your hand may hold less
Tell a pour size apart from a glass size
Ask for the size you want in one plain sentence, and get seen while you do it

F4.1.1 The sizes, in ounces

Every pour you can be offered, what it holds, and what it is for.

Ounces are US fluid ounces throughout. A half litre is 500 ml and a litre is 1000 ml.
Pour	Volume	Where you meet it	What it is for
Taster	2-4 oz	Brewery taprooms, good beer bars	Deciding. Often free, and not a serving
Flight pour	4-5 oz	Anywhere with a flight board	Four to six at once, on a paddle
Half pour	8-10 oz	Most bars, advertised by almost none	Half the beer for roughly half the money
Strong beer pour	8-10 oz	Anything much over 8% ABV	The house keeping you upright
Twelve ounce	12 oz	Cans, bottles, and plenty of taps	The old American default
US pint	16 oz	Most draft beer in the United States	The standard order
Half litre	16.9 oz	German style bars, mugs and steins	The European standard, near enough a US pint
Imperial pint	20 oz	British and Irish style pubs	A fifth more beer than a US pint
Litre	33.8 oz	Oktoberfest tents, a few German bars	A mass. Two US pints and a bit

A pint is a unit, not a glass

A US liquid pint is 16 US fluid ounces, which is 473 ml. That number is fixed by measurement law and has not moved since 1959. A British imperial pint is 20 imperial fluid ounces, which is 568 ml.

So a pint in Dublin is about a fifth more beer than a pint in Denver. Same word, two units. If you have ever come home from Britain thinking American pints look small, you were right.

Pour size and glass size are different questions

The pour is how much beer you get. The glass is the container it arrives in. They are not the same number, and the gap between them is where most of the confusion lives.

The commonest American beer glass is the straight sided shaker pint, so called because it doubles as half of a cocktail shaker. It holds 16 ounces filled to the very brim. A beer poured properly has a head on it, so what reaches you is less than 16 ounces of liquid. That is foam, not fraud.

The one worth knowing about is a glass that holds about 14 ounces to the brim and looks almost identical. Glassware suppliers sell them. A bar using them can pour what looks like a pint and hand over two ounces less, every time, without saying anything untrue.

Sources disagree

What does the word pint on an American menu actually promise?

Measurement law. A pint is 16 fluid ounces. The unit is fixed and unambiguous.
Ordinary bar practice. A pint is whatever the house pint glass holds, and nobody is measuring the beer that goes in it.

Both are true at the same time, because no United States rule requires draft glassware to be certified. Britain does require certified measures for draught beer, which is why a British pint glass carries a stamp and a line. The honest reading of pint on an American menu is "our normal big glass". If the number matters to you, the question is one short sentence and the next screen has it.

One state tried to fix this

Oregon House Bill 3122, in the 2009 session, would have let a bar have its pint glasses verified and then display an official sticker saying so. It reached a Senate committee and stopped there. It never became law.

Britain went the other way and fixed the measures themselves. Draught beer there can only be sold in specified quantities, and an order in 2011 added two thirds of a pint to a list built around the half and the pint. That measure is usually called a schooner.

Worked example: Which is the bigger drink

A 10 ounce pour of an 8.5% imperial stout, or a 16 ounce pint of a 4.8% lager. One glass is 60% larger than the other.

Use the standard drink sum from F1.2: ounces times strength, divided by 60.
The stout: 10 times 8.5 is 85. Divided by 60 is about 1.4 standard drinks.
The lager: 16 times 4.8 is 76.8. Divided by 60 is about 1.3 standard drinks.
The small glass is the bigger drink.

Volume and alcohol are two different questions. The small glass in front of a strong beer is doing a job, and a bar that will not pour you a pint of a 12% barleywine is not being difficult.

Covered in Module F1, What beer is

ABV, and what a standard drink is. Ounces times strength divided by 60 gives you standard drinks. Taught once, in Module F1.

Covered in Module F1, What beer is

Crowlers, growlers and what to carry home. A crowler is a 32 ounce can sealed on the spot. A growler is a refillable jug. Both are for drinking somewhere else.

Sources: US liquid pint: 231 cubic inch gallon, international yard and pound agreement, 1959 · Oregon HB 3122, 2009 regular session, Oregon Legislative Information System · The Weights and Measures (Specified Quantities) Order 2011, SI 2011/2331

Check yourself

Before you read on. A US pint is a fixed unit of measurement. How many fluid ounces is it?
Answer: 16ounces. A standard American can of beer is 12 ounces. A pint glass is noticeably bigger than a can.
16 fluid ounces, or 473 ml. People who have drunk in Britain often guess 20, which is the right answer for an imperial pint and the wrong one here. The two units share a name and differ by about a fifth.
You order a pint in a Dublin pub and a pint in a Denver bar. What is the difference?
Answer: The Dublin pint is 20 imperial ounces, about a fifth more beer
An imperial pint is 568 ml and a US pint is 473 ml. The metric answer is tempting because Ireland and Britain are metric for nearly everything else. Draught beer is the exception, and it is still sold in imperial pints by law.
An 8 to 10 ounce serving at roughly half the price. Most bars will pour one and almost none put it on the menu. What is it called?
Answer: half pour
A half pour. Some bars call it a half pint, which is loose language, because half of a US pint is 8 ounces and plenty of half pours are 10. The name matters less than the fact that asking for one is completely ordinary.
Sort each pour by whether it holds less than a US pint or a US pint and up.
Answer: Taster, 3 ounces goes in Less than a US pint · Flight pour, 4 ounces goes in Less than a US pint · Half pour, 8 ounces goes in Less than a US pint · A 12 ounce can goes in Less than a US pint · Half litre, 16.9 ounces goes in A US pint or more · Imperial pint, 20 ounces goes in A US pint or more · Litre, 33.8 ounces goes in A US pint or more
The half litre is the one that catches people, because 500 ml sounds like a lot more than a pint and is actually 0.9 ounces more. A German mug and an American pint glass hold almost the same beer.
A beer poured properly into a 16 ounce shaker pint glass gives you 16 ounces of liquid beer.
Answer: False
False. The glass holds 16 ounces filled to the brim, and a good pour puts a head on the beer, so some of that space is foam. This is normal and correct. A glass filled to the rim with no head is a worse pour, not a more generous one.
Pair each pour with its volume.
Answer: Taster with 2 to 4 ounces · Flight pour with About 4 ounces · US pint with 16 ounces · Half litre with 16.9 ounces · Imperial pint with 20 ounces
The two worth memorising are 16 and 20, because they are the two things the word pint can mean. The half litre sits between them and is close enough to a US pint that nobody argues about it.
Which of these are true about draft beer measures in the United States?
Answer: A pint is 16 fluid ounces as a unit of measurement · There is no general requirement that a bar glass be certified · Glasses that hold about 14 ounces to the brim are sold to bars
The unit is fixed, the glassware is not, and short glasses that look like pint glasses genuinely exist. The last option feels like it should be true, because most things you buy by volume are regulated. Draft beer poured into a glass is not one of them.
A 10 ounce pour of an 8.5% stout, or a 16 ounce pint of a 4.8% lager. Which one puts more alcohol in you?
Answer: The 10 ounce stout, at about 1.4 standard drinks against about 1.3
Ounces times strength divided by 60. The stout gives 1.4 and the lager 1.3. The bigger glass looks like the bigger drink, which is exactly why bars pour strong beer small. Volume tells you how long it lasts, not how much alcohol arrived.
Put these pours in order, smallest first.
Answer: 1. Taster, about 3 ounces 2. Flight pour, about 4 ounces 3. Half pour, about 8 ounces 4. US pint, 16 ounces 5. Imperial pint, 20 ounces
Each step is roughly a doubling until the top, where the imperial pint adds a quarter. Holding the ladder in your head is what lets you translate a menu that says nothing at all about sizes.
Britain fixes the legal measures for draught beer. An order in 2011 added a new one, two thirds of a pint. What is that measure usually called?
Answer: schooner
A schooner. It matters here as a contrast rather than as an order you will place in Ohio. Britain regulates the measure and stamps the glass. The United States regulates the unit and leaves the glass alone.

F4.1.2 How to ask for it

Getting seen first, then getting the size you want, in sentences you can say out loud.

Getting served is a two signal problem

Researchers recorded 105 real orders in German bars and clubs and then tested which customer behaviours bar staff were actually reading. Two signals did all the work: standing squarely at the bar, and looking at a member of staff. Each one was necessary and the pair together was enough.

The numbers are worth having. Customers were positioned directly at the bar in 92 of the 105 orders and were looking at the bartender in 86 of them. A hand gesture aimed at the bartender appeared in 4 of the 105. Looking at money appeared in 7.

Worth remembering

Square, look, wait.

Turn your body square to the bar so your shoulders face it. Look at whoever is serving. Then stop doing anything. Waving, calling out and holding a note in the air are all rare in the recordings and none of them are what staff respond to.

Waving money gets you served faster

It does not, and it is worth dropping, because people who believe it tend to escalate when it fails. In the recorded orders, only 7 of 105 customers so much as looked at their money while bidding for attention.

Two honest limits on this research. It was filmed in Germany, and it measured what staff respond to rather than who they choose first when four people are waiting. It tells you how to signal. It does not promise you a queue position.

Then the sentence

Say the size first, then the beer. It lets the bartender reach for the right glass while you are still talking, which is the whole job of a bar order. A half pour of the porter, please. Not: could I have the porter, and actually, is there a smaller one.

Four sentences that get you the size you want

What sizes do you pour that in?
Is the pint a full sixteen?
Can I get a half pour of the stout?
What is the smallest pour of the imperial?

None of these are unusual requests. All of them are asked at that bar every night.
What you want	What to say	What normally happens
A smaller beer, no explanation	A half pour of the pale ale, please	You get 8 to 10 ounces at about half the price
To know what you are getting	What sizes do you pour?	A short list. Ask before you choose the beer, not after
To try before you commit	Could I try the saison first?	A 1 to 2 ounce taste, usually free in a taproom
Less alcohol, same evening	What is the lowest ABV thing you have on?	A real recommendation. Staff like this question
To keep it simple	That one, please	Pointing at the board is a complete order

The half pour is the single most useful thing on that list. Most bars pour them, most menus do not mention them, and the request tells the bar nothing about you except that you would like a smaller beer.

When not to ask

Timing is the only real etiquette here. Three people deep at the bar on a Friday is a bad moment for a conversation about sizes. Last call is worse. A quiet Tuesday afternoon in a taproom is the moment to ask everything you want to know, and you will get a better answer.

If the words come out wrong

Point at the board. A finger and the word please is a complete and normal beer order, and it works in every bar in the world. Nobody behind a bar has ever thought less of a customer for pointing.

You are also allowed to say you do not know. What would you give someone who has no idea what they want is a question bartenders enjoy, and it usually produces something better than what you would have picked.

Sources: Loth, Huth and De Ruiter (2013), Automatic detection of service initiation signals used in bars, Frontiers in Psychology 4:557

Check yourself

In the bar study, which behaviours did staff actually read as a bid for attention?
Answer: Standing squarely at the bar · Looking at a member of staff
Position and gaze were each necessary and together sufficient. Waving appeared in 4 orders out of 105 and money in 7, so neither is what staff are watching for. The waving option is tempting because it feels like the assertive thing to do, and assertiveness is not the variable.
Three words for how to get served: square, look, and then what?
Answer: wait
Wait. The hard part is doing nothing after the two signals are sent, because a queue makes people feel they should be adding effort. Adding effort mostly means adding noise, and noise is not one of the signals.
Which order is easiest for a bartender to act on?
Answer: A half pour of the porter, please
Size first, then beer. It lets them pick up the right glass while you are still speaking. The second version makes them start over halfway through, which is where fumbled orders come from. The third is a fine question at a quiet bar and a slow one at a busy bar.
Asking for a half pour marks you out as someone who does not know beer.
Answer: False
False. It marks you out as someone who wants a smaller beer, which is the only information it carries. People who drink a lot of beer order halves constantly, because it is how you try four things in an evening and still walk home.
Sort these moments by whether they are a good time to ask a question at the bar.
Answer: Quiet Tuesday afternoon in a taproom goes in Ask away · Empty bar, one bartender restocking goes in Ask away · You are seated and they have just brought a menu goes in Ask away · Three people deep on a Friday night goes in Ask later · Last call, with a queue goes in Ask later
The etiquette is entirely about their time, never about the question. The same question that is welcome at four in the afternoon is expensive at midnight. Nothing on this list is about whether you have earned the right to ask.
Pair each thing you want with the sentence that gets it.
Answer: A smaller beer with A half pour of the pale ale, please · To know the sizes first with What sizes do you pour? · A taste before choosing with Could I try the saison first? · Something weaker with What is the lowest ABV thing you have on? · Out of words entirely with That one, please
Every one of these is short, specific and answerable. Long questions get short answers at a bar, and short questions get long ones, which is the reverse of what most people expect.
Before you read on. Out of 105 recorded bar orders, in how many did the customer make a hand gesture at the bartender?
Answer: 4orders. Think about what people believe about getting served, then about what you actually see people do.
Four. Almost nobody gestures, and the ones who do are not the ones getting served faster. Most people guess far higher, because the memorable customers are the ones waving, and the ordinary ones standing quietly are invisible by definition.
You have 90 minutes, you want to try three different beers, and you want to be clear headed afterwards. What do you order?
Answer: Three half pours, spread out
Three halves is roughly a pint and a half of total liquid, spread across three beers and 90 minutes. The pour size is the lever you have. Most people only ever move the beer and never the size, which is why the evening runs away from them.
Pointing at a tap handle and saying please is an acceptable way to order a beer.
Answer: True
True, and it always has been. Pointing is a complete order in every bar on earth, and it is the correct move when the name has four syllables and two umlauts. Nobody behind a bar is grading your pronunciation.
One sentence, six words or fewer, that gets you a smaller beer without any explanation.
Answer: a half pour please
A half pour, please. No reason attached, because none is needed. The instinct to explain why you want less beer is the thing to drop, and dropping it makes the request land as completely routine, which it is.

Class 1 done

You can name every size a bar can pour you, say what a pint is as a unit, and ask for the one you want without explaining yourself.

The four lines worth keeping

US pint 16 ounces. Imperial pint 20. Half litre 16.9, near enough the same as a US pint.
The pour is the beer. The glass is the container. A 16 ounce glass does not hold 16 ounces of beer once it has a head.
Square, look, wait. Not waving, and not money.
Size first, then the beer. A half pour, please, needs no reason after it.

Class F4.2

Flights, samples and tasters

A flight is a pint of beer split four ways and served on a plank. A taster is smaller, usually free, and the thing most beginners are too polite to ask for.

By the end of this class you will be able to

Say what a flight holds in total, and what it costs you in alcohol
Tell a taster, a flight pour and a half pour apart
Know what is normally free and what is not
Ask for a taste in words that do not sound like a favour

F4.2.1 What a flight actually is

Four small glasses on a board, and the arithmetic nobody does before ordering one.

A flight is four to six small pours served together, usually on a wooden board or a metal paddle. Each pour is about 4 to 5 ounces. In most places you choose them yourself from whatever is on tap.

Sizes and prices vary between bars. The relationships between them do not.
Format	Typical size	Usually costs	What it is really for
Taster	1-2 oz	Nothing, in a taproom	Deciding between two beers
Flight pour	4-5 oz	Part of the flight price	Drinking, briefly
Flight of four	16-20 oz total	A little over the price of one pint	A first visit somewhere
Half pour	8-10 oz	About half a pint	Having found the one you want

A flight is a pint, split

Four pours of 4 ounces is 16 ounces, which is exactly a US pint. That is the single most useful thing to know about flights. You are not ordering a small thing. You are ordering a pint that arrives in four glasses and takes longer to drink.

Worked example: The flight that is stronger than it looks

A four beer flight at a taproom: a 4.5% helles, a 6.8% IPA, a 9% imperial stout and an 11% barleywine. Four ounces each.

Ounces times strength, divided by 60, one beer at a time. The sum is from F1.2.
The helles: 4 times 4.5 is 18. Divided by 60 is 0.3 standard drinks.
The IPA: 0.45. The stout: 0.6. The barleywine: 0.73.
Add them up: about 2.1 standard drinks.

That is more alcohol than a 16 ounce pint of the helles on its own, which comes to 1.2. Small glasses hide it well, and a flight of strong beers is a real drink, not a tasting exercise.

What order to drink them in

Weakest first, then strongest. Palest first, then darkest. Hoppy last. Bitterness hangs around after you swallow and flattens whatever follows it, so a bitter IPA drunk second will spoil the two beers after it.

Boards usually arrive left to right in the order you asked for them, so ask for them in the order you want to drink them. If they arrive in the wrong order, rearranging four glasses is allowed.

The honest downside of a flight

Four ounces in an open glass warms up fast and loses its bubbles faster. A flight that sits on the table for 25 minutes while you talk becomes four warm flat beers, and you will judge every one of them unfairly.

So a flight is a good first order in a new place and a bad way to spend an hour. Drink it briskly, decide what you liked, then order a proper pour of that one.

Flights belong to the American taproom, where a brewery sells only its own beer and needs you to find the one you will come back for. Britain solved the same problem differently, by making the third of a pint and the two thirds legal measures you can order one at a time.

Covered in Module F1, What beer is

ABV, and what a standard drink is. Ounces times strength divided by 60 gives you standard drinks. Taught once, in Module F1.

Check yourself

Before you read on. A flight of four pours, 4 ounces each. How many ounces of beer is that in total?
Answer: 16ounces. Four times four. The interesting part is what that number equals.
16 ounces, which is a US pint. People treat a flight as a small order because the glasses are small. It is a full pint, split four ways, and it usually costs a little more than a pint of any one of the beers in it.
A flight of four 4 ounce pours at 4.5%, 6.8%, 9% and 11%. Roughly how many standard drinks?
Answer: About 2, so more than a pint of the weakest one
About 2.1 standard drinks. Each glass is small, but strength does the work and there are four of them. The one for each glass answer treats a glass as a unit of alcohol, which is the habit that gets people into trouble with craft beer generally.
Put a four beer flight in the order you should drink it.
Answer: 1. A 4.5% pale lager 2. A 5.5% wheat beer 3. A 9% imperial stout 4. A 7% IPA
Weak to strong, pale to dark, and the bitter one last. Bitterness lingers after you swallow, so an IPA drunk early will make everything after it taste thinner and drier than it is. The stout comes before the IPA here despite being stronger, because the IPA does more damage to what follows.
A flight is a good way to spend a relaxed hour with friends.
Answer: False
False, and this is the practical failure of flights. Four ounces in an open glass goes warm and flat within about 20 minutes. A flight is a fast decision tool for a new place. Then you order a real pour of whichever one you liked.
Sort each serving by what it is for.
Answer: A 1 ounce taster goes in Deciding · A four beer flight goes in Deciding · A half pour goes in Drinking · A US pint goes in Drinking · A half litre mug goes in Drinking
The flight is the interesting case, because it holds as much beer as a pint and still belongs in the deciding column. What it is for is finding out. What it is not for is settling in.
Four to six small pours, served together on a board. What is it called?
Answer: flight
A flight. Some bars call it a sampler and mean the same thing. The word taster is different: that is the single small pour a bartender hands you to try, usually free, and usually smaller than any glass on a flight board.
Pair each format with its usual size.
Answer: Taster with 1 to 2 ounces · Flight pour with 4 to 5 ounces · Half pour with 8 to 10 ounces · Flight of four, in total with 16 to 20 ounces
Four numbers, each roughly double the one before. The pair that gets confused is the taster and the flight pour, because both are small and both arrive in an odd little glass. One is free and one is part of what you paid for.
Why did flights become an American taproom fixture rather than a British pub one?
Answer: A taproom sells only its own beer, so it needs you to find the one you will come back for
A brewery taproom is a shop with one supplier, and a flight is how it introduces its range. Britain answered the same problem by making the third and the two thirds of a pint legal measures, so you can order small one glass at a time.
Which of these are good reasons to order a flight?
Answer: It is your first visit and you do not know the brewery · You want to compare two beers you cannot choose between
Flights are for deciding. They are poor for lingering, because small pours go warm, and they are rarely the cheapest route to a pint, because you are paying for the choice. The cheapest option is nearly always a pint of one thing.
Ordering a flight instead of a pint means drinking less alcohol.
Answer: False
False, usually. A four by four ounce flight is a pint of liquid, and if any of the four are strong it carries more alcohol than a pint of an ordinary beer would. The small glasses make it feel like a lighter order than it is.

F4.2.2 Asking for a taste

What is free, what is not, and how to ask without feeling like you are asking for a favour.

What is normally free

Where you are	Is a taste free	What to expect
Brewery taproom	Usually yes	A 1 to 2 ounce pour, handed over without ceremony
Beer bar with many taps	Usually yes	Free but slower, and fair to decline when busy
Restaurant or hotel bar	Often not offered	Beer is a small part of the business here
Anywhere, for a rare or expensive keg	Often not	A limited barrel aged beer is not a free sample
A flight	Never free	That is a purchase, not a taste

The reason a taproom gives beer away is not generosity. The brewery owns every keg in the room, and a 1 ounce taste that turns into a pint is the cheapest sale it will make all day. You are not costing them anything. You are doing the thing the taster exists for.

Whether free samples are allowed at all is set by state law, and it varies. Colorado, for example, caps a tasting sample at a retail liquor store at one ounce of beer and four samples per person. Those rules cover shops rather than taprooms, but they are a reminder that a bartender saying no may be quoting a licence rather than judging you.

How many is too many

CraftBeer.com, which is published by the Brewers Association, put this question to taproom staff. One taproom manager said he encourages people to try two to four beers before taking a full glass, and added that he would not be offended if someone tried all of them. Another said that pouring and talking about the beer is what the job is.

That is staff opinion rather than survey data, and it comes from taprooms rather than from every bar in America. It is still the clearest published answer to the question, and it sits a long way from what a nervous first timer assumes, which is usually one taste at most.

Asking, in words that are not an apology

Could I try the saison before I decide?
I am stuck between the pilsner and the kolsch. Could I taste both?
What does the sour taste like? Could I try a bit?
I have never had a smoked beer. Is a taste possible?

Notice what is missing from all four: sorry, and any explanation of why you deserve it. The request is a normal part of the transaction. Padding it with an apology is what makes it feel like a favour, and the padding is the only thing you need to cut.

If you taste it, you have to buy it

You do not. The entire point of a taste is that it might be a no. Tasting three beers and then ordering the first one is a completely ordinary sequence, and so is tasting one and ordering something else.

The one thing worth doing is closing the loop out loud. I will go with the pilsner, thanks. That is all the courtesy the situation needs.

When to skip the question

Do not ask when there is a queue behind you, at last call, or when the beer only comes in a bottle or a can. A sealed bottle cannot be sampled, and asking puts the bartender in the position of explaining that, which is the one awkward outcome available here.

If it still feels like begging

Reframe what is happening. You are asking a seller to help you spend money in their shop. That is not a favour, it is the transaction. Restaurants hand out bread, wine shops open bottles, and taprooms pour tastes, all for the same commercial reason.

And if you get a flat no, it is nearly always about the licence, the queue or the keg, not about you. A no costs you nothing except the beer you were unsure about anyway.

Sources: Is There a Limit to Tasters, and 9 Other Pieces of Taproom Etiquette, CraftBeer.com, Brewers Association · Colorado Revised Statutes 44-3-301(10), tasting sample limits at retail

Check yourself

Sort each of these by whether you normally pay for it.
Answer: A 1 ounce taste in a taproom goes in Normally free · A second taste, because you are torn goes in Normally free · A four beer flight goes in You pay · A half pour goes in You pay · A 4 ounce pour of a rare barrel aged beer goes in You pay
The line is between deciding and drinking. A taste is a sales tool, a flight is a purchase, and the fact that a flight pour and a taste look similar in the glass is exactly why people confuse them.
Why does a brewery taproom hand out free tastes?
Answer: It owns every keg in the room, so a taste that becomes a pint is a cheap sale
It is a sales tool, not a kindness and not a rule. Knowing that is what removes the feeling of asking for charity. The law answer is backwards: in several states the law limits sampling rather than requiring it.
If a bartender pours you a taste, you are expected to buy that beer.
Answer: False
False. The taste exists so that the answer can be no. Tasting two things and buying the first one is routine, and so is tasting one and ordering something else entirely. Saying which one you will take closes it politely.
Which of these are good moments to ask for a taste?
Answer: A quiet taproom with nobody waiting · You are choosing between two beers you cannot picture
The two good moments are about their time and your genuine uncertainty. A sealed can cannot be sampled, so asking forces the bartender to explain that. The etiquette is entirely about timing and never about whether you have earned it.
Rewrite this so it is not an apology: "Sorry, I know this is annoying, but is there any chance I could maybe try the saison?"
Answer: could i try the saison
Could I try the saison. The sorry and the hedging are the only things that make the request sound like a favour, and cutting them changes nothing about what you are asking for. Short requests get warmer answers than long ones.
Before you read on. A taproom manager was asked how many tastes are reasonable before ordering a full glass. What number did he give as his encouragement?
Answer: 3tastes. Think about what you would guess as a customer, then remember he sells beer for a living.
He said he encourages people to try two to four, so three is the middle of it, and he added that he would not be offended if someone tried all of them. Most beginners assume the limit is one. The published advice from taproom staff is several times that.
Pair each situation with the sentence for it.
Answer: Torn between two beers with Could I taste both? · No idea what a style even is with I have never had a sour. Could I try a bit? · You tasted and chose with I will go with the pilsner, thanks · You tasted and want neither with Neither for me, thanks. What else is like the first one?
The fourth one is the sentence people cannot find in the moment, so they buy a beer they did not want. Saying neither is allowed, and following it with a question keeps the conversation useful rather than awkward.
A bartender says no to a taste. What is the most likely reason?
Answer: The licence, the queue or the keg, in that order
Sampling rules genuinely vary by state, busy service genuinely makes it expensive, and some kegs are genuinely too limited to give away. Reading a no as a verdict on you is the natural response and almost never the right one.
A flight pour and a taster are the same thing in a different glass.
Answer: False
False. A taster is 1 to 2 ounces, usually free, and exists to help you decide. A flight pour is 4 to 5 ounces that you have already paid for. The confusion is understandable, because both arrive in a small glass you would not otherwise be handed.
Fill the gap. A no from a bartender about a taste is usually about the licence, the queue or the ______.
Answer: keg
The keg. A limited or expensive beer is often held back from sampling because there is not much of it. All three reasons sit on their side of the bar, which is the point worth carrying away.

Class 2 done

You can order a flight knowing what it holds, drink it in the right order, and ask for a taste in four words with no apology attached.

The three lines worth keeping

A four by four ounce flight is a pint, split. It is not a small order.
Weakest first, palest first, hoppy last. Then drink it briskly.
Could I try the saison. No sorry, no explanation, no favour asked.

Class F4.3

Tabs, rounds and tipping

Three money questions that have nothing to do with beer and cause more hesitation at the door than anything on the tap list. Two of them have clear answers. The third genuinely does not, and pretending otherwise would be dishonest.

By the end of this class you will be able to

Open, run and close a bar tab without losing your card
Say what a round costs you beyond the money
Tip in an American bar using numbers rather than guesswork
Explain why tipping norms vary so much from state to state

F4.3.1 Tabs, cards and rounds

How the money is held while you drink, and what happens when a group starts buying for each other.

Opening a tab

A tab is a running total. You hand over a card, the bar keeps it, everything you order goes on the list, and you settle once at the end. The alternative is paying for each round as it comes.

They say	They mean	What to answer
Do you want to start a tab?	Shall I hold your card?	Yes please, or just this one for now
Keep it open?	Are you having another?	Keep it open, thanks, or close me out
There is a card minimum	Usually 10 to 20 dollars	Pay cash, or order a second drink
Do you want it all on one?	One tab for the table	Fine, or ask to be split now rather than later
Gratuity is included	A service charge is already on the bill	Check before you add anything

The single most common failure is walking out without the card. It will still be behind the bar tomorrow, and you will still have to go back for it. The reliable fix is to close out when the last beer is poured rather than when you are ready to leave.

Auto gratuity is worth watching for. Many bars add a service charge of 18% to 20% for large parties and print it on the menu. It appears as a line on the bill, and tipping again on top is a mistake people make constantly.

Rounds

A round is one person buying a drink for everyone, with the expectation that everyone else takes a turn. It is a way of showing you are together rather than four people who happen to be at one table.

Researchers interviewed 60 young adults in Melbourne about the practice. Two findings are worth carrying into an American bar. Rounds broke down in groups larger than about four or five, because keeping the turns, the cost and the drinking even became impossible. And participants overwhelmingly believed that buying rounds increased how much they drank.

What a round costs you beyond the money

A round sets the pace of the table to the pace of the fastest drinker. Your next beer arrives when somebody else decides, not when you finish.

It also moves money unevenly. If you are drinking an 8 dollar lager and one person is drinking 14 dollar barrel aged stouts, the round is not a fair split, it is a subsidy with extra steps.

Getting out of the round, without a speech

I am going to get my own, I am pacing myself.
Count me out of this one, I am still working on mine.
Get me a soda water this round.
Let me get this one and then I am going to slow down.

Buying the first round and then dropping out is the smoothest version of this, because you have already given before you decline. It costs one beer and it ends the obligation cleanly.

Covered in Module F1, What beer is

Crowlers, growlers and what to carry home. A crowler is a 32 ounce can sealed to order. A growler is a refillable jug. Both go on the same tab as your beer.

Sources: Riazi and MacLean (2016), Young adults accounts of buying rounds of alcoholic drinks for friends, International Journal of Alcohol and Drug Research 5(3)

Check yourself

The bartender asks, keep it open? What are they actually asking?
Answer: Whether you are having another drink, so they know whether to hold the card
It is a question about the card and about your evening at the same time. Keep it open, thanks, or close me out, are both complete answers. People freeze on it because it sounds like a bigger question than it is.
The best moment to close a tab is when you are ready to leave.
Answer: False
False, in practice. Close out when the last beer is poured, then drink it. Cards get left behind when settling up and leaving happen in the same two minutes, usually with a coat and a phone in the other hand.
Before you read on. A bar adds an automatic service charge for large parties. What percentage is it usually?
Answer: 19%. It is set to be roughly what a good tip would have been anyway.
18% to 20% is the usual band, so anything in that range is right. It is printed on the menu and appears as a line on the bill. The reason to know the number is so that you recognise it and do not tip a second time on top.
Four words that end the evening cleanly and get your card back.
Answer: can i close out
Can I close out. Settle up works identically. Both are unambiguous and neither requires you to explain that you are leaving, which is the part people tie themselves in knots over.
Which of these are real costs of joining a round?
Answer: Your next beer arrives when somebody else decides · Money moves unevenly if people drink different priced beers · It usually raises how much you drink over the evening
Pace, money and volume are all real, and the interviewees named the last one themselves. Bars do not price rounds differently, which is the tempting wrong answer because a round feels like a bulk purchase and is simply several drinks at once.
Why do rounds break down in groups larger than about four or five?
Answer: Keeping the turns, the cost and the drinking even stops being possible
That is what the interviewees described: past four or five people the reciprocity, the money and the pace all get away from you. Big groups drift naturally towards everyone buying their own, and joining that drift is not rude, it is the normal outcome.
Sort these into ways of leaving a round and ways of joining one.
Answer: I am going to get my own, I am pacing myself goes in Leaving the round · Count me out of this one goes in Leaving the round · Get me a soda water this round goes in Leaving the round · Same again for everyone, on me goes in Joining the round · My turn, what is everyone having goes in Joining the round
The soda water line is the interesting one, because it keeps you inside the social ritual while taking you out of the drinking. It is the least conspicuous exit available and nobody at the table registers it as a refusal.
Buying the first round and then dropping out is a reasonable way to handle rounds.
Answer: True
True, and it is the cleanest version. You have given before you decline, so the obligation is settled and nobody is counting. It costs one round and buys you the rest of the evening at your own pace.
Pair what the bar says with what it means.
Answer: Do you want to start a tab? with Shall I hold your card? · There is a card minimum with Spend 10 to 20 dollars or pay cash · Gratuity is included with A service charge is already on the bill · Do you want it all on one? with One tab for the whole table
All four are routine and all four are phrased as though you already know the system. The one to catch is gratuity included, because tipping on top of it is the most expensive misunderstanding on this list.
Your group of six wants separate bills at a busy bar. What is the best move?
Answer: Each open your own tab at the start
Splitting one tab six ways at closing time is slow at exactly the moment a bar has no time. Opening separate tabs at the start costs nothing and removes the problem. The cash option works, and it moves the arithmetic to the least reliable point of the evening.

F4.3.2 Tipping, with numbers

What the guidance says, what people actually do, and why the two do not match.

Ranges from the Emily Post general tipping guide, which is the most widely cited American source.
Situation	The usual American number
Ordering at the bar, per drink	1 to 2 dollars a drink
Ordering at the bar, on a running tab	15% to 20% of the tab
Table service, food and drink	15% to 20%, before tax
Counter service with a tip screen	No obligation. A dollar is generous
A tip jar at a taproom	No obligation. Coins or a dollar if they helped
A service charge already on the bill	Nothing further is expected

What people actually do

The Pew Research Center asked nearly 12,000 American adults about tipping in 2023. Its findings are the honest version of the table above.

92% say they always or often tip for a sit down meal. At a bar, for drinks, it is 70%.
Only 34% find it extremely or very easy to know whether they are supposed to tip. Only 33% say the same about how much.
72% say tipping is expected in more places today than it was five years ago.
For an average sit down meal, 57% would tip 15% or less. 25% would tip 20% or more.

Sources disagree

What is the correct tip for table service in an American bar?

Emily Post general tipping guide. 15% to 20% of the pre-tax bill.
Pew Research Center, 2023. A majority of Americans, 57%, actually tip 15% or less for an average sit down meal.

The guidance sits at the top of the range and the behaviour sits at the bottom. Both numbers are real, which is precisely why nobody can tell you the answer with confidence. Anything from 15% to 20% is inside normal American practice, and nobody at any bar in the country is doing arithmetic on your receipt afterwards.

Why the norm varies so much

Because the law does. Under federal rules, an employer may pay a tipped worker a cash wage of 2 dollars 13 cents an hour. Tips are then counted towards the 7 dollar 25 cent federal minimum, up to 5 dollars 12 cents of them. In that arrangement the tip is not a bonus, it is most of the wage.

Seven states do not allow that. Alaska, California, Minnesota, Montana, Nevada, Oregon and Washington require the full state minimum wage before any tips, as does Guam. Tipping is still customary in those states, and it is genuinely a supplement rather than the wage itself.

So a Portland bartender and a Nashville bartender are in the same job under two different economic systems. That is the real reason the etiquette will not settle, and it is worth knowing so you can stop looking for a single right answer that does not exist.

If tipping is the part that makes you avoid bars

You are in the large majority. Two thirds of American adults say it is not easy to know whether or how much to tip. This is not a gap in your education, it is a genuinely unsettled norm that changed twice in the last decade.

So pick a rule and stop relitigating it every time. Table service: 20% and do not check the arithmetic. Ordering at the bar: two dollars a drink, or 20% of a tab, whichever is bigger. Counter service with a screen: a dollar, or nothing, with no guilt attached either way.

A fixed rule costs you a few dollars a year against optimising, and it removes a decision that was stealing attention from the beer.

Tipping in cash means the bartender keeps it

Not reliably. Most bars pool and split tips across the shift, and many include the kitchen and the barbacks. Cash may reach the pool a day sooner and it does not usually change who ends up with it.

The thing that does change service is being easy to serve: knowing your order, having your card ready, not blocking the rail. Tip well if you can. It is not a lever for jumping the queue.

Sources: Emily Post general tipping guide · Pew Research Center, Tipping Culture in America, November 2023 · US Department of Labor, Minimum Wages for Tipped Employees

Check yourself

Before you read on. Under federal law, what cash wage per hour may an employer pay a tipped worker, with tips making up the rest?
Answer: 2.13dollars. The federal minimum wage is 7 dollars 25 cents an hour. The tipped figure is a lot lower than that.
2 dollars 13 cents. The employer may count up to 5 dollars 12 cents of tips towards the 7 dollar 25 cent minimum. Most people guess much higher, because the number sounds like a typing error. It has not moved since 1991.
You order two beers at the bar and pay for them there and then. What is the usual tip?
Answer: One to two dollars a drink
A dollar or two per drink is the widely cited American figure. The nothing answer is the one that trips up visitors from countries without tipping. In most of the United States the tip is doing part of the job that an hourly wage does elsewhere.
Which of these states require the full state minimum wage to be paid before any tips?
Answer: California · Oregon · Washington
Seven states plus Guam ban the tip credit, and California, Oregon and Washington are three of them. Texas follows the federal rule. This is the single biggest reason tipping norms feel different in different parts of the country.
Tipping in cash reliably means your bartender personally keeps the money.
Answer: False
False. Most bars pool tips across a shift and often share them with barbacks and the kitchen. Cash may arrive a day sooner. It rarely changes who ends up with it, and it never buys you a better position in the queue.
A service charge is already printed on your bill. How much should you add on top?
Answer: nothing
Nothing. The service charge is the tip, under a different name. Tipping again on top is the most expensive mistake in this class, and it happens because the line sits above the total where nobody reads it.
A counter service taproom spins a tablet round showing 20%, 25% and 30%. What is a reasonable response?
Answer: A dollar, or nothing, with no guilt either way
The screen is a default chosen by a payment company, not an etiquette authority. Etiquette guidance treats a tip jar or counter service as no obligation. Nearly three quarters of Americans say tipping is now expected in more places than it used to be, and this screen is what they mean.
Before you read on. What share of American adults say it is extremely or very easy to know whether they are supposed to tip?
Answer: 34%. Think about how often you have had to guess in the last year.
34%, so about a third. Two thirds of the country finds this confusing, which is the number to remember on any night when you feel like the only person in the bar who does not know the rules.
Sort these by whether a tip is expected.
Answer: Table service with food goes in Tip expected · A running tab at the bar goes in Tip expected · Two beers paid for at the bar goes in Tip expected · A tip jar next to the register goes in No obligation · A bill with a service charge already on it goes in No obligation
The dividing line is whether somebody served you rather than sold to you. The service charge case belongs in the second column for a different reason: the tip is already there, so adding one is a second payment for the same thing.
Etiquette guidance and actual American behaviour give the same tipping figure.
Answer: False
False, and the gap is worth knowing. Guidance says 15% to 20%. Pew found that 57% of Americans would tip 15% or less on an average sit down meal. Both are real, so anything in that band is inside normal practice.
You want to stop thinking about tipping altogether. What is the most sensible policy?
Answer: One fixed rule for each situation, applied without recalculating
A fixed rule costs a few dollars a year against optimising and buys back a decision you were making several times a night. The optimising answer sounds more conscientious and is exactly the habit that turns an evening out into an admin task.

Class 3 done

You can open and close a tab, step out of a round without a speech, and tip by rule instead of by guesswork.

The four lines worth keeping

Close the tab when the last beer is poured, not when you stand up.
A round sets your pace to somebody else. Buy the first one, then buy your own.
Table service 20%. At the bar, two dollars a drink or 20% of the tab.
Check for a service charge before you add anything.

Class F4.4

The social side of ordering

Eight things that happen to people ordering beer, what the evidence says about each, and the counter move in words you can use. Then two traps that have no clean fix, marked as such.

By the end of this class you will be able to

Name the eight documented friction points and the counter move for each
Say what the research shows about being judged for what you order
Get out of a round, a question or a conversation without a speech
Tell the problems you can solve apart from the ones that are somebody else behaving badly

F4.4.1 Four things that happen at the bar

The transaction itself: choosing, answering, saying the name, and getting served.

Everything on these two screens is documented somewhere: in survey data, in observational research, or in trade writing by the people who work behind the bar. None of it is unusual and none of it is a personal failing.

One number for scale. The Liebowitz scale is the standard clinical checklist for social anxiety, and it lists 24 ordinary situations. Drinking with others in public places is one of them. Talking to people in authority is another. A bar puts both of those in the same thirty seconds, which is a reasonable explanation for why a simple errand can feel like an exam.

1. The wall of taps

Forty names on a chalkboard, none of which describe what is in the glass, and a queue behind you. Most people solve it by ordering the one word they recognise, which is how someone ends up drinking the same beer for a year.

The usual explanation is choice overload, and the evidence for that is weaker than people think. A meta-analysis of 50 published experiments found no reliable average effect from simply having more options. What it did find is that overload appears under particular conditions: no existing preference, unfamiliar options, and time pressure. That is a precise description of a beginner at a tap list on a Friday night.

Counter move: make somebody else do the sorting

I usually drink lager. What is closest to that?
What are two you would put in front of me?
What is freshest right now?
What is your lightest thing, and what is your darkest?

Ask for two, not one. Choosing between two options is easy and choosing between forty is not, and the person behind the bar can do that reduction in about four seconds.

2. The question you cannot answer

You get asked what you are in the mood for, or whether you like hoppy or malty. You have no vocabulary yet, so the question lands as a test you have already failed.

It is not a test, it is a diagnostic. CraftBeer.com, which is published by the Brewers Association, interviewed a taproom manager who described her whole job as a conversation built around tasting. Her method is to ask what you normally drink and work out the next step from there. The question exists because it is the fastest route to something you will like.

Counter move: two words, or a rejection

Something light and not bitter.
I like grapefruit. I do not like sweet.
I usually drink cider. What is near that?
I do not know yet. What would you give somebody who does not know?

A dislike is as useful to them as a preference, and easier to name. You do not need beer words for any of this. Fruit, bread, coffee, sweet, bitter, light and heavy are enough.

3. The name you cannot pronounce

Hefeweizen. Gueuze. Kolsch. Saison. Weihenstephaner. The quiet consequence is that people order the beer they can say, which is a tax on your choices that nobody ever mentions.

There is no survey of how often this happens in bars, so this one is honest guesswork about scale. What does exist is experimental work showing that names people cannot pronounce comfortably change how they judge and choose products in general. And bar staff mispronounce these names too, constantly, including the ones who have worked there for years.

Counter move: point, or use the style, or ask

The wheat beer, third one down.
That one, please. How do you say it?
I am going to mangle this. The Belgian one at the bottom.
The one that starts with a G.

Asking how it is said is the strongest of the four, because it turns an awkward moment into a short piece of shop talk. Bartenders like being asked and the answer takes two seconds.

4. You cannot get served

You are at the bar, two people who arrived after you have been served, and you are working out whether to wave, shout or give up. This one has the cleanest evidence in the whole class, and it is covered in F4.1.2: stand square to the bar, look at the staff, then wait. In the recordings, those two signals were what staff read, and waving appeared in 4 orders out of 105.

Counter move: signal, wait, then one sentence

When you get a chance, I am next.
No rush, I am next after these two.
Two things when you are ready.

Say one of those after you have been passed over twice, not before. Said early it reads as impatience. Said after two rounds of being missed it is simply information, and most bartenders will apologise and serve you next.

The honest limit on that research

The bar signals study was filmed in Germany and it measured what staff respond to, not who they choose first when four people are waiting. It tells you how to be legible. It does not promise you a place in the queue, and some bars are simply run badly.

Sources: Scheibehenne, Greifeneder and Todd (2010), Can There Ever Be Too Many Options, Journal of Consumer Research 37(3) · Liebowitz Social Anxiety Scale, 24 items, from Liebowitz (1987), Social phobia, Modern Problems of Pharmacopsychiatry 22 · Brewery Employees Share Thoughts for Craft Beer Beginners, CraftBeer.com, Brewers Association · Leonhardt and Pechmann (2021), Liabilities of using difficult-to-pronounce product names, Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes · Loth, Huth and De Ruiter (2013), Automatic detection of service initiation signals used in bars, Frontiers in Psychology 4:557

Check yourself

What does the research actually say about being faced with forty taps?
Answer: More options do not reliably overwhelm people, but they do when you have no preference and no time
A meta-analysis of 50 experiments found no reliable average effect, and the conditions where overload does appear are unfamiliar options, no existing preference and time pressure. The always answer is the popular version of the story and it overstates the evidence. The disproved answer throws out the specific case that actually describes you.
You are stuck at a forty tap board. Complete the counter move: ask them to name how many options?
Answer: two
Two. Asking for a single recommendation puts you in the position of accepting or rejecting a person. Asking for two turns it into a choice between two beers, which is a decision you can make in three seconds without any beer knowledge at all.
A bartender asks what you are in the mood for. Which of these are complete, useful answers?
Answer: Something light and not bitter · I like grapefruit, I do not like sweet · I do not know yet, what would you give somebody who does not know?
All three of the first ones give a working direction, and the second is the strongest because a dislike narrows the list faster than a preference. The fourth is the answer people think they are supposed to give, and it is both harder and less useful than saying you like grapefruit.
Being asked what you like is a test of whether you belong in the bar.
Answer: False
False. It is the fastest tool the person serving you has, and taproom staff describe it as the standard opening of the conversation. It lands like a test because it arrives in the form of a question you cannot answer, which is not the same thing as being one.
Sort these responses to a beer name you cannot pronounce.
Answer: Point at it and say please goes in Works fine · Ask how it is said goes in Works fine · Describe it: the wheat beer, third one down goes in Works fine · Order something easier to say instead goes in Costs you the beer you wanted · Say nothing and leave without ordering goes in Costs you the beer you wanted
The second column is the real cost of this friction point. Nobody notices it happening, including you, because ordering the easy name still produces a beer. It is a quiet narrowing of what you drink, and it lasts for years if nothing interrupts it.
You have been passed over twice at the bar. What is the move?
Answer: One short sentence: when you get a chance, I am next
The sentence is information, and after two misses it reads as such rather than as impatience. Waving and showing money were both rare in the recorded orders and neither is what staff are reading. Escalating usually feels like the only remaining option and is the weakest one.
Before you read on. The standard clinical checklist for social anxiety lists everyday situations. How many situations are on it?
Answer: 24situations. It covers things like eating in public, making a phone call in front of others, and returning something to a shop.
24, and drinking with others in public places is one of them. So is talking to people in authority. A bar asks you to do both at once in front of an audience, which is a structural fact about bars rather than anything about you.
Pair each friction point with its counter move.
Answer: Forty taps and no idea with Ask for two recommendations, not one · What are you in the mood for? with Name a flavour you like or one you do not · A name you cannot say with Point, or describe it, or ask how it is said · Passed over at the bar with Square, look, wait, then one short sentence
Each counter move hands work to the person who has it easy. The bartender can shorten a list, name a beer and say a German word without effort. None of these ask you to acquire knowledge before you are allowed to order.
The bar signals research proves that standing square and looking at staff will get you served before other people.
Answer: False
False, and the overclaim is worth avoiding. It found what staff read as a bid for attention. It did not study who gets picked first out of four people waiting, and it was filmed in German bars. It makes you legible, which is a different promise from making you first.
Name one flavour word that is enough to narrow a forty tap list, without using any beer vocabulary.
Answer: grapefruit
Any of grapefruit, coffee, chocolate, sweet, bitter, light or heavy will do it. Ordinary food words work better than style names, because the person serving you can translate a food word into four taps immediately, and a half remembered style name into nothing.

F4.4.2 Four more, and two with no clean fix

The part that involves other people: being watched, being read, being handed the wrong glass, and not drinking.

5. Ordering in front of people who know more than you

Five of you at a table. Three have ordered confidently. Your turn arrives, you have not read the list, and everybody is now listening to you order a drink.

Ordering later is not neutral. A study of real restaurant tables found that the first person to order, the table leader, has a considerable influence on what everyone else chooses and on how much they spend. By the time your turn comes you are ordering inside somebody else's decision, whether or not you notice.

Counter move: go first, or buy a minute

I will go first: a half pour of the pilsner, please.
Go ahead of me, I need a minute.
Same as her, please.

Going first sounds like the harder option and is the easier one, because nobody has set a standard yet. Copying the previous order is also a completely respectable move and always has been.

6. Your order gets read as a statement about you

Somebody comments on what you ordered. A raised eyebrow at a fruit beer, a remark about a woman ordering a stout, an assumption that the light one must be for you.

A sociologist surveyed 93 patrons at four New York craft beer bars, 63 men and 30 women, about which beers read as masculine and which as feminine. People agreed with each other 83.75% of the time on the feminine terms and 88.73% on the masculine ones, so this is a shared script rather than a few odd opinions. Every single respondent had something to say about a woman ordering outside it. About a third declined to comment on a man doing the same thing.

The result is a double bind that men do not face. Order the light or fruity beer and you confirm the stereotype. Order the stout or the IPA and the comments turn sexual or arrive as an accusation of being unlike other women. There is no order that produces silence.

Counter move, and it is a partial one

It is what I feel like tonight.
Yes, it is great.
I know. Anyway, as you were saying.

These end the exchange rather than winning it. A flat sentence with no justification in it gives the comment nowhere to go, and turning back to your own conversation finishes the job.

Be clear about what this does and does not do. It protects your evening. It does not stop the commenting, because the commenting was never about your phrasing.

7. The beer and the check go to the wrong person

You order the IPA and your companion orders the cider. The IPA is set down in front of him. Later the check lands in front of him too, although you asked for it.

This has been audited. Researchers sent mixed pairs to 176 restaurant visits in Phoenix, with the woman always asking for the bill, and compared the results with the same audit run in the 1970s. Most servers put the bill in the middle of the table. Of the ones who chose a person, the share handing it to the man had gone up since the 1970s, and the share handing it to the woman had fallen to almost never.

Counter move: claim it out loud, and pay early

The IPA is mine.
That one is his, this one is mine.
Can I settle up now? It is on my card.
Put it on this, please.

Handing over the card with the order, rather than waiting for a check to be placed somewhere, removes the decision from the server entirely. It is the only move on this screen that works every single time.

8. Not drinking, or drinking less

You want one beer rather than four, or a non-alcoholic beer, or nothing at all. What you expect is an interrogation, so a lot of people drink to avoid the conversation.

The best population evidence here is more cheerful than the fear. A national survey of 2,285 adults, including 330 who do not drink, asked what actually happens to them on drinking occasions. They reported mostly positive reactions from the people around them and relatively low levels of negative consequences, with the fewest in the oldest age group. Pressure is much better documented among young people than among adults generally.

Counter move: order it by name and add nothing

A non-alcoholic beer, whatever you have.
I am on the soda water tonight.
Just water, thanks.
One is my limit tonight, so I am making it a good one.

No reason is required and offering one invites a negotiation. If somebody pushes anyway, repeating the same sentence in the same tone works better than a new argument.

Covered in Module 11, Non-alcoholic and low alcohol

Non-alcoholic beer, and which ones are good. Under 0.5% ABV in the United States. The category is genuinely good now, and there is a module on it.

Two traps with no clean fix

The eight above are yours to work with. The next two are other people behaving badly, and no phrasing solves them. Being told to word a question differently is not a fix for being condescended to, and saying so plainly is more useful than a script that quietly makes it your job.

Trap one: the person who tests you

What it looks like: your pronunciation corrected without being asked, a quiz about whether you know what a real IPA is, your own sentence explained back to you slower. It can come from a stranger, another customer or occasionally from behind the bar.

The mechanism is documented. In the survey of craft beer bar patrons, legitimacy was granted to men by default and made conditional for women, who had to keep earning it through what they ordered and what they knew. In 2021 the industry had a public reckoning about the same culture inside breweries, when hundreds of accounts of harassment and discrimination were posted after one production manager invited them.

There is no sentence that makes a condescending person stop. What is available is ending the exchange rather than winning it. Sure. Thanks. Then turn back to your friend, or move seats, or leave. None of that is a defeat.

And treat it as information about the room. A bar where this happens twice in one evening has a culture problem, and there are far more good bars than bad ones. Walking out of a bad one is a competent thing to do, not a retreat.

Trap two: unwanted attention when you are on your own

What it looks like: a drink bought for you that you did not ask for, somebody who will not take the hint, a conversation you cannot end. It is the reason a lot of people will not drink alone at a bar at all, which costs them one of the best things about bars.

Trained observers recorded incidents in large capacity bars and clubs and analysed 258 aggressive incidents involving sexual advances. In 90% the initiator was male and the target female, and almost all were judged intentional rather than a misreading of signals. Targets mostly responded by evading rather than confronting. Staff rarely intervened. Other customers intervened in about a fifth of incidents.

Nothing you order, wear or say causes this and nothing reliably prevents it. Evasion is the commonest response because it is often the safest one, and that is a finding rather than a criticism.

What is worth knowing: staff rarely act unprompted, and they respond well when asked directly. Can I move to the other end of the bar. This person is bothering me, can you help. Can someone walk me out. Training programmes for bar staff on exactly this exist and are being tested, which tells you the industry now treats it as the venue's job.

The burden is in the wrong place. That is not a counter move, it is just true, and it is better said than skipped.

Covered in Module F4, At the bar

What to say, word for word. Every sentence on this screen, plus the ones for when the beer is wrong, collected on one page you can open in a doorway.

Sources: Darwin, H. (2018), Omnivorous Masculinity, Social Currents 5(3) · Swank and Fahs (2021), I will take the check, Journal of Gender Studies 31(3) · Graham and others (2014), Blurred Lines, Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research 38(5) · Schamel and Santos-Arteaga (2018), Leader Effects and Gender Differences in Sequential Restaurant Ordering, Journal of Wine Economics 13(4) · Katainen, Harkonen and Makela (2021), Non-Drinkers Experiences of Drinking Occasions, Substance Use and Misuse 57(1) · Scheibehenne, Greifeneder and Todd (2010), Can There Ever Be Too Many Options, Journal of Consumer Research 37(3) · Roberts and others (2025), Bar-Staff Bystander Intervention Training, Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs 86(2)

Check yourself

Ordering last in a group is socially neutral, because everyone gets what they want anyway.
Answer: False
False. Research on real restaurant tables found the first person to order exerts considerable influence on what the others choose and what they spend. Ordering last means ordering inside somebody else's decision, which is why going first is often the easier slot rather than the harder one.
Before you read on. Men and women in that survey were asked which words describe a masculine beer. How often did the two groups agree with each other?
Answer: 89%. If this were personal opinion rather than a shared script, agreement between two groups would be somewhere near chance.
88.73% agreement on the masculine terms, and 83.75% on the feminine ones. That is a shared script rather than a few odd opinions, which is what makes it predictable. The sharper finding is the asymmetry: every respondent had something to say about a woman ordering outside the script, and about a third had nothing to say about a man doing the same.
What is the double bind the study describes?
Answer: A light or fruity beer confirms the stereotype, and a stout or IPA brings sexual comments or being called unlike other women
Both directions carry a cost, which is what makes it a bind rather than a preference problem. Knowing that no order buys silence is oddly freeing, because it removes the strategy of ordering defensively and leaves you free to order what you actually want.
Which of these reliably stop your beer being placed in front of the wrong person?
Answer: Saying the IPA is mine as you order · Handing your card over with the order
Claiming it out loud and paying up front both remove the guess from the server. Swapping afterwards works but happens after the moment. The fourth option accepts the premise that some beers belong to some people, which is the thing being corrected.
A four word sentence that stops the check being handed to whoever the server assumes is paying.
Answer: put it on this
Put it on this, with the card already out. It is the only move in the class that works every time, because it removes the server's decision instead of correcting it afterwards.
Sort these into problems you can solve and things that are somebody else behaving badly.
Answer: Forty taps and no idea what to order goes in You have a counter move · Being asked what you like goes in You have a counter move · The check going to the wrong person goes in You have a counter move · Not wanting another drink goes in You have a counter move · Being quizzed and corrected by a stranger goes in No clean fix · Somebody who will not leave you alone goes in No clean fix
The first four are yours to work with and the last two are not. Advice that puts the last two in the first column is telling you to phrase your way out of somebody else's behaviour, which does not work and quietly makes it your fault.
A stranger at the bar corrects your pronunciation and starts quizzing you. What actually helps?
Answer: End the exchange rather than win it, then turn back to your friend or move
There is no sentence that makes a condescending person stop, so the goal is your evening rather than the argument. Both of the other options keep the conversation alive on their terms, and the quiz is the thing you are trying to leave.
Before you read on. In observed bar incidents involving sexual advances, what share had a male initiator and a female target?
Answer: 90%. Trained observers coded 258 incidents in large capacity bars and clubs.
90%, and almost all were judged intentional rather than a misreading of signals. The number matters because it settles the question of whether this is a misunderstanding that better signalling could prevent. It is not.
Ordering a non-alcoholic beer in a bar usually triggers a difficult conversation.
Answer: False
False, on the best population evidence. A national survey of 2,285 adults, 330 of them non-drinkers, found mostly positive reactions and relatively low levels of negative consequences, with fewest in the oldest group. The fear of the interrogation is generally worse than the interrogation, although pressure is better documented among young people.
Somebody at the bar will not leave you alone. Which of these are worth doing?
Answer: Ask staff directly to move you or to help · Ask someone to walk you out
Asking works and waiting does not: in the observed incidents staff rarely intervened unprompted, while other customers stepped in about a fifth of the time. The fourth option is the one people run automatically, and the research is clear that the initiator's behaviour was intentional rather than caused by the target.

Class 4 done

Eight friction points, a counter move for each, and two traps that belong to somebody else. That is the whole social layer of ordering, written down.

What to carry out of this class

Ask for two recommendations, not one. Choosing between two is easy.
A dislike is a better answer than a preference, and easier to say.
Point at the board. Nobody is grading your pronunciation.
Claim your beer out loud and hand the card over with the order.
No order buys silence, so order what you want.
The last two are not yours to fix, and leaving is a competent move.

Class F4.5

What to say, word for word

Every sentence from this module on one page, in the order you will need them, plus the ones for when something is wrong. Nothing here is clever. All of it is said in bars every night.

By the end of this class you will be able to

Open, run and close an order using sentences you have already read once
Say the four words that get a smaller beer, a taste, or the check
Say something useful when the beer is wrong, without an argument
Recall the sequence later without looking it up

F4.5.1 The sentences, in order of use

Arrive, choose, size it, pay. Four groups, and you will use two of them most nights.

Arriving

Is it table service or do I order here?
Can we sit anywhere?
Two things when you are ready.
When you get a chance, I am next.

Choosing

I usually drink lager. What is closest to that?
What are two you would put in front of me?
Something light and not bitter, please.
I like grapefruit. I do not like sweet.
What is your lightest thing, and what is your darkest?
What is freshest right now?
What would you give somebody who does not know?

Sizes and tastes

What sizes do you pour?
Is the pint a full sixteen?
A half pour of the stout, please.
What is the smallest pour of the imperial?
Could I try the saison before I decide?
I am stuck between these two. Could I taste both?
I will go with the pilsner, thanks.

Money

Can I start a tab?
Keep it open, thanks.
Put it on this, please.
The IPA is mine.
Can I close out?
Is gratuity already included?

Four rules hold all of that together. Size first, then the beer. No apology in front of a request. A dislike beats a preference. Point if the word will not come out.

Worth remembering

Size, name, please.

A half pour, of the porter, please. Three parts in that order, and the bartender can start pouring before you have finished the sentence. Every other sentence on this page is a variation on it.

Worked example: Forty seconds, door to beer

A busy taproom you have never been to. Thirty taps on a chalkboard. You do not recognise a single name.

Stand square to the bar and look at whoever is serving. Wait.
"Hi. I usually drink lager. What are two you would put in front of me?"
They name two. "What is the lighter one?" They point.
"A half pour of that one, please."
"Can I start a tab? Put it on this."

Five sentences, none longer than eight words, and not one of them required you to know anything about beer. This is the whole skill, and it works in every bar in the country.

Two sentences worth memorising properly

A half pour of the stout, please. It gets you a smaller beer with no explanation attached.
What are two you would put in front of me? It turns any tap list into a choice between two things.

Check yourself

Put a first order in the sequence that works.
Answer: 1. Stand square to the bar and look at the staff 2. I usually drink lager. What are two you would put in front of me? 3. A half pour of that one, please 4. Can I start a tab? Put it on this
Get seen, narrow the list, name a size, settle the money. Each step makes the next one shorter. Most bad orders happen because the narrowing step is skipped and the choosing is done in silence while a queue builds.
Three words for the structure of any bar order.
Answer: size name please
Size, name, please. A half pour, of the porter, please. Saying the size first lets them reach for the glass while you are still talking, and it removes the moment where you have to change the order halfway through.
Which sentence turns any tap list into a manageable decision?
Answer: What are two you would put in front of me?
Asking for two gives you a choice you can make instantly. Asking for the best asks somebody to defend a favourite, and asking what others drink usually returns the most popular thing, which is rarely the most interesting one on the board.
Which of these sentences will get you a smaller beer?
Answer: A half pour of the stout, please · What is the smallest pour of the imperial? · What sizes do you pour?
The first three all move the size. The freshness question is a good one and it is about the beer rather than the glass. Knowing which lever a sentence pulls is what stops you asking a question that cannot give you the answer you want.
A request works better with an apology in front of it.
Answer: False
False. Sorry to be a pain, but is there any chance I could maybe try the saison, is a longer sentence that asks for exactly the same thing. The padding is the only part that makes it sound like a favour, and cutting it changes nothing else.
Pair each moment with its sentence.
Answer: You have just walked in with Is it table service or do I order here? · You want the list narrowed with What are two you would put in front of me? · You want less beer with A half pour of the stout, please · You are leaving with Can I close out? · The check should be yours with Put it on this, please
Five moments, five sentences, none over eight words. The one people forget is the first, and walking up to a bar in a table service room is the most common small humiliation available in an American restaurant.
Before you read on. In the worked example, how many sentences does it take to go from walking in to holding a beer you chose?
Answer: 5sentences. Count the greeting, the narrowing question, the follow up, the order and the payment.
Five, none longer than eight words. People imagine the competent version of this involves knowing the beers. It involves knowing five sentences, which is a much smaller thing to carry into a bar.
You have walked into a room with tables and a bar and cannot tell how it works. What do you ask?
Answer: is it table service or do i order here
Is it table service or do I order here. It takes two seconds, it is asked constantly, and the alternative is guessing wrong and standing at a bar in a room where somebody was about to bring you a menu.
Sort these sentences by what they are for.
Answer: What sizes do you pour? goes in Getting information · What is freshest right now? goes in Getting information · Is gratuity already included? goes in Getting information · A half pour of the stout, please goes in Placing an order · Put it on this, please goes in Placing an order
Ask the information questions before you name a beer, not after. Asking about sizes once the pint is poured is the sequence that produces an awkward pause, and it is entirely avoidable by moving one sentence earlier.
Which pair of rules covers most of this class?
Answer: Size first then the beer, and no apology in front of a request
Those two rules generate most of the sentences on this page. The second option is folklore rather than practice. The third is the belief this whole module exists to remove, because timing your questions well is different from never asking any.

F4.5.2 When it goes sideways

The beer is wrong, the glass is wrong, the bill is wrong, or you want to leave. One sentence each.

Every sentence here is short, specific and free of accusation. That is what makes them work.
What has happened	What to say	What normally happens next
Wrong beer arrived	I think this is the pale ale. I ordered the porter.	It gets swapped, no discussion
Half the glass is foam	Could you top that up when it settles?	They top it up. This is routine
The beer is warm	Is this one meant to be served this warm?	Either yes with a reason, or a fresh one
Bubbles clinging inside the glass	Could I get a fresh glass for this?	A clean glass, and no argument
It tastes wrong to you	Something is off with this one. Could you taste it?	They taste it. Often a new beer
You just do not like it	This is not for me. Can I get something else?	Depends on the bar. Often yes
The bill looks wrong	Can we go through this one? I count three.	They check. Mistakes are common
You want to leave	Can I close out?	The tab is closed, card returned

The distinction that matters is between something is wrong with the beer and I do not like this beer. The first is the bar's problem and they want to know. The second is a preference, and asking is still allowed, but it is a favour rather than a right.

Saying which one you mean is what keeps the exchange short. Something is off with this one, could you taste it, invites them to check. This is not for me, is honest and asks for nothing.

You cannot send a beer back

You can, and good bars would rather you did. A faulty keg poured to forty people is a bad night for the bar, and the customer who says something is doing them a favour rather than causing trouble.

What makes it easy is naming what you notice rather than delivering a verdict. This smells like wet cardboard, works. This is disgusting, does not.

Covered in Module P2, Faults

The ten faults, and how to name them. Wet cardboard, butter, band aid, cooked sweetcorn. What each one smells like and what caused it. Taught once, in Module P2.

Covered in Module P3, Buying, keeping and serving

Glassware, and when it matters. Bubbles clinging to the inside of a glass mean it is not clean, and the film is killing the head.

Covered in Module P3, Buying, keeping and serving

Date codes, and which beers die fastest. How to read the code on a can, and how long a hoppy beer really has. Taught once, in Module P3.

The social ones

It is what I feel like tonight.
Count me out of this round, I am pacing myself.
A non-alcoholic beer, whatever you have.
Can I move to the other end of the bar?
This person is bothering me. Can you help?
Can someone walk me out?

The last three go to staff and they go directly. Say them as statements rather than as questions about whether you are overreacting, because a bartender asked a plain question gives a plain answer.

The last resort is always available

You can leave. Half a beer on the bar and a walk to the door costs eight dollars and ends any situation, and nobody follows up. It is a legitimate move rather than a failure, and knowing it is there makes the rest of the evening easier.

And there are more good bars than bad ones. A room that made you feel small has told you something about the room, and the next one along is usually fine.

Covered in Module F4, At the bar

The social side of ordering. The evidence behind those last six sentences, and why two of the situations have no clean fix.

Check yourself

Your beer smells like wet cardboard. What is the most useful thing to say?
Answer: Something is off with this one. Could you taste it?
Naming what you notice and inviting them to check keeps it short and factual. A verdict puts them on the defensive, and saying nothing means a faulty keg keeps being poured to everyone else in the room.
Sort these into a problem with the beer and a matter of taste.
Answer: It smells of wet cardboard goes in Something is wrong · Bubbles are clinging to the inside of the glass goes in Something is wrong · The wrong beer was brought to you goes in Something is wrong · It is more bitter than you expected goes in You do not like it · You have gone off sour beers goes in You do not like it
The first column is the bar's problem and they want to hear about it. The second is a preference, where asking to swap is a favour rather than a right. Saying which one you mean is what keeps the conversation to two sentences.
Sending a faulty beer back marks you as a difficult customer.
Answer: False
False. A bad keg poured to forty people is a much worse night for the bar than one customer mentioning it early. Good bars treat the report as useful information, and the wording is what decides how it lands, not the fact of raising it.
Half your glass is foam. What do you ask for?
Answer: a top up
A top up once it settles. This is completely routine and every bartender has done it a hundred times. The instinct to accept a half glass of foam rather than ask is the same instinct this whole module is aimed at.
Pair each problem with the sentence for it.
Answer: The wrong beer arrived with I think this is the pale ale. I ordered the porter. · The glass is not clean with Could I get a fresh glass for this? · The bill looks wrong with Can we go through this one? I count three. · Somebody will not leave you alone with This person is bothering me. Can you help?
All four are statements of fact with no accusation in them, which is the entire technique. The bill one matters because bar mistakes are common at the end of a busy night and almost nobody checks.
Which of these should be said to staff directly rather than hinted at?
Answer: Can I move to the other end of the bar? · This person is bothering me. Can you help? · Can someone walk me out?
The first three are requests staff can act on immediately, and the evidence is that they rarely act unprompted. The fourth is a preference and there is no urgency in it, so it belongs in a normal conversation rather than a direct request for help.
Which module tells you what wet cardboard, butter and band aid actually mean in a beer?
Answer: Module P2, the faults module
P2 covers the ten faults, what each one smells like and what caused it. This class only supplies the words for raising it. Splitting them keeps each module doing one job, and it is why the course links rather than repeats.
Leaving a bar you are not enjoying, half a beer still on the counter, is a reasonable thing to do.
Answer: True
True. It costs the price of half a beer and ends any situation immediately, and nobody follows up or remembers. Knowing the exit is always available is what makes the rest of the evening easier to relax into.
Three words for how to get served, from Class 1.
Answer: square look wait
Square, look, wait. Two signals and then patience. It pairs with size, name, please, which is the other three word rule in this module. Between them they cover getting seen and getting served.
Which of these are true of the sentences in this class?
Answer: They are short, usually under eight words · They state a fact rather than making an accusation · They do not require you to know anything about beer
Short, factual and knowledge free is the whole design. The explanation option is the habit this module is built to remove, because a reason attached to a request turns a routine transaction into a negotiation.

Module F4 done

You can order any size in any bar, ask for a taste, run a tab, tip by rule, step out of a round, and say something useful when the beer is wrong. That is the whole practical layer of drinking beer in public.

What you now know

US pint 16 ounces, imperial pint 20, and the glass is not the pour.
Square, look, wait. Then size, name, please.
A flight is a pint, split four ways. Weak first, hoppy last.
Table service 20%. At the bar, two dollars a drink. Check for a service charge.
Eight friction points have counter moves. Two are somebody else behaving badly, and leaving is always available.