Advice to Retailers

On the Rogue post below, a frustrated anonymous commenter asked the following question in what I take to be good faith, if not model diplomacy:

I'm confused. If I'm serving beer in in a 16 oz. capacity glass, but with a one-finger head, do you want me to mark it as "approximately 14 ounces" on my menu? And since beer foam is usually about 25% beer, do you want me to say it's actually 14.5 ounces, even if it's technically only 14 ounces of beer when it makes it into the customer's hand?

And if I switch to Imperial Pints, do I call it a 20 oz. pint like your beloved Bailey's, or do I call it a 19.8 ounce Imperial Pint, since the box sez they actually only hold 19.8 ounces. Then there's the foam issue again... Please advise, because I really don't know what you want me to do here in order to comply with your rules.

Let's step back. The Honest Pint Project is not designed to enforce rules. Rather, the two goals are:

1. Increasing transparency so consumers know what they're paying for;
2. Encouraging retailers to serve 16 ounces of liquid when their menus refer to "pints."

Anon, I encourage you to switch to imperial pints in your establishment. On your menu, you can call them imperial pints. The reason they're a shade below 20 ounces is because the volume standard comes from the UK, where the measure is slightly different from the American standard. But the key thing here is that an imperial pint is a known, fixed volume--it provides the customer with the information to make an informed decision about pricing, and provides a full 16-ounce pour (or more) for those who are unaware of British volumes.

If your establishment uses 16-ounce glasses, it won't qualify as a "Certified Purveyor of an Honest Pint," but I won't be designating it an, ahem, rogue pub, either. The goal here is to encourage good behavior and transparency, not punish pubs using 16-ounce glasses. (I can't promise that I won't post names of pubs using 14-ounce or smaller glasses that they are trying to pass off as "pints"--though I'm not about to become a pub cop.)

As to what you should call 16-ounce glassware, I don't have a good suggestion. You have ably described the problem with those glasses in your question.