This week saw the publication of research into the effects of reducing the standard serving size of draught beer in the UK.
The University of Cambridge study was described by its leader as being “the first real-world study to look at this”. It shows that reducing the current standard beer glass size in bars, pubs and restaurants from the current pint (568 ml) size has the potential to reduce the total amount of alcohol consumed in the UK, and should be given consideration as part of the Government’s fight to reduce the effects of alcohol consumption on health.
Health benefits of reducing alcohol consumption
Alcohol consumption is the fifth largest contributor to premature death and disease worldwide. In 2016 it was estimated to have caused approximately 3 million deaths worldwide.
Alcohol misuse can cause long-term consequences, such as higher risk of brain damage, liver disease, dementia, and a number of cancers. This has a particular effect for health services. In 2022/23, there were over 320 000 alcohol-specific hospital admissions. NHS England estimate that up to 15% of A&E attendances are alcohol related.
Alcohol-specific deaths in the UK were over 10 000 in 2022, a 70% increase from 2002.
Methods of reducing alcohol consumption
Until now, governments have focused on reducing alcohol misuse by reducing the availability of cheap, high-strength drinks. This has been done by the use of a duty, or tax, regime on the sale of alcohol. This regime was updated as recently as August 2023.
However, the Government hasn’t yet sought to use another option available to it, which is the reduction of the serving sizes of alcoholic drinks in pubs and restaurants. This is in spite of two recent academic studies that have both shown that reducing the largest available serving size leads to a reduction in the amount of alcohol consumed.
The results of a University of Cambridge study, published in January 2024, showed that removing the largest wine glass size led to an average reduction in the amount of wine sold in pubs and bars of just under 8%.
The results of a similar study, published this week, showed that removing the pint (568 ml) glass in favour of a two-thirds pint glass (379 ml) led to an average reduction in the amount of draught beer sold in licensed premises of just under 10%.
Published in PLOS Medicine, on 17 September 2024, the University of Cambridge research article concluded, “Given the potential of this intervention to reduce alcohol consumption, it merits consideration in alcohol control policies.”
The Guardian quoted Prof Dame Theresa Marteau, study leader and director of the behaviour and health research unit at the University of Cambridge, as saying, “Does this have the potential to contribute to population health? I’d say definitely, yes.”
Government reaction
The only published Government reaction to the study, so far, appears to be in a BBC article, in which Labour MP Josh Simons, an ally of prime minister Sir Keir Starmer, says he would not back any plans to remove pints as the top measure of drinks. The article quotes him as saying, “I love a pint and leader of the Labour Party Keir Starmer loves a pint.”
The elephant in the room – Metrication
The University of Cambridge study was restricted to the use of legally available draught beer serving sizes, and so was unable to test more subtle reductions in size from the one pint (568 ml) glass size. The two-thirds of a pint (379 ml) glass size used in the trial was the available option with the smallest reduction in size – but even this option represented a large reduction of 33%. The consumer-acceptability of this reduction was an obvious obstacle in conducting the study – researchers had asked more than 1700 pubs, bars and restaurants to participate in the trial, but only 13 accepted, despite compensation offers for lost sales.
A more subtle reduction in glass size would probably have led to a more subtle reduction in alcohol consumption, but it might also have led to a proposition more acceptable to consumers and therefore less politically problematic for the Government to consider. Any possible reduction in alcohol consumption should be something to be taken seriously, rather than rejected outright.
The sizeable 33% reduction necessary for this trial is reminiscent of the situation in Wales when a reduction of 33% had to be made when the default speed limit was lowered in 2023 from 30 mph, using imperial units – a more finely-tuned adjustment could have been made using metric speed limits in km/h.
The current range of prescribed sizes for draught beer is quite coarse:
⅓ pint, ½ pint, ⅔ pint, 1 pint, multiples of ½ pint.
All sizes are specified in imperial pints and fractions only. It might surprise some readers to learn that draught beer cannot currently be sold in metric quantities.
Given that the fluid ounce ceased to be a legal unit for trade long ago, any new imperial glass size intermediate to the two-thirds pint and one pint would have to be specified in another awkward-looking fraction of a pint. Two of the prescribed quantity sizes for draught beer already lead to recurring numbers when written as decimals.
Of course, the obvious solution would be to bring the sale of draught beer and cider into line with beer and cider already sold in bottles and cans, by switching all prescribed quantities of draught beer and cider to metric units, with sizes based on multiples of 100 ml.
The International Organisation Of Legal Metrology, OIML, already has such a standard metric range. The range provides for two round metric sizes that are both smaller than the imperial pint and also larger than the awkward two-thirds pint size.
…, 200 ml, 250 ml, 300 ml, 400 ml, 500 ml, 1 litre, …
The 500 ml size would be an obvious replacement for pint glasses in pubs, and the 400 ml size would probably be an option more welcome in a restaurant setting.
Beer glasses in these sizes can already be found in bars and restaurants across our continent. These standard sizes come in a variety of designs. The adoption of standard metric beer glass sizes will give bar and restaurant owners a greater choice of glass designs, and ought to lead to cheaper glasses in the long run.
The 500 ml (0.5 litre) size is about 12% smaller than an imperial pint, and the 400 ml (0.4 litre) size is about 30% smaller than an imperial pint. As a replacement for pint glasses, either size should lead to a reduction in national alcohol consumption, and so should be of interest to any government with a serious commitment to reducing the impact of alcohol consumption on the NHS.
Other opportunities and benefits
If new glasses switch to the lined variety, rather than the brim-measure type currently used, new 500 ml lined glasses would actually be larger than the current brim-measure pint (568 ml) glasses, and would allow room for a proper head of beer, with fewer spillages. A typical 500 ml lined glass has a to-the-brim capacity of over 600 ml.
Apart from doorstep deliveries of milk, the sale of draught beer and cider in pints represents the last holdout of imperial units for trade. Switching to metric units for this purpose is long overdue. The need to know one less conversion factor will benefit consumers.
Will metric mean the end of the “pint”?
Brits abroad already have no problem when ordering “a pint” of beer in a bar serving beer in 0.4 litre or 0.5 litre glasses. In such circumstances, the word “pint” is always understood by both parties to mean “large beer”. Similarly, selling draught beer in 500 ml glasses in the UK need not prevent Sir Keir Starmer, or anyone else, from enjoying “a pint”. The word “pint” will live on for a long time after metrication, just as the word “dram” has already done when referring to whisky served in 25 ml or 35 ml glasses.
References
Removing pint glasses could reduce beer sales by almost 10% – 18 September 2024
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/removing-pint-glasses-could-reduce-beer-sales-by-almost-10
Removing largest wine glass serving reduces amount of wine sold in bars and pubs – 18 January 2024
https://www.cam.ac.uk/research/news/removing-largest-wine-glass-serving-reduces-amount-of-wine-sold-in-bars-and-pubs
Impact on beer sales of removing the pint serving size: An A-B-A reversal trial in pubs, bars, and restaurants in England
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004442
Impact on wine sales of removing the largest serving size by the glass: An A-B-A reversal trial in 21 pubs, bars, and restaurants in England
https://journals.plos.org/plosmedicine/article?id=10.1371/journal.pmed.1004313
The new alcohol duty system – 1 August 2024
https://commonslibrary.parliament.uk/research-briefings/cbp-9765/
Small beer: Study calls on government to shrink pints
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c4gl737zr79o
Pint of no return? Two-thirds measure could boost English health – study
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2024/sep/17/pint-two-thirds-beer-measure-english-health-study-pubs
Vessels for commercial transactions – OIML
https://www.oiml.org/en/files/pdf_r/r138-e07.pdf
(Acknowledgement to Martin Vlietstra for the OIML reference)
Metric Views 
A quick comment about ‘doorstep deliveries of milk‘ … of course this refers to traditional pints in returnable glass bottles.
I’ve had milk delivered on my doorstep in two litre bottles for several years. The used 2 L plastic bottles are then put in the local authority’s green recycling bin.
Cheers!
LikeLiked by 1 person
There is a comments section to contribute to on today’s Guardian article:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/22/britain-beer-drink-pint-half-two-thirds
“Really, when you think about it, 568ml is an obscene amount of liquid to consume in one sitting … It probably wouldn’t occur to you to drink more than half a litre of coffee, or milkshake, or kombucha at a time. So why is it the norm, in Britain, with beer – and despite the known harms?”
LikeLiked by 1 person
A letter from our Chair has been published in the Guardian:
“Cheers! Here’s to the end of the pint”
https://www.theguardian.com/food/2024/sep/22/cheers-heres-to-the-end-of-the-pint
“Peter Burke welcomes an opportunity to finally end the sale of beer in imperial units”
LikeLiked by 2 people
Whether it is a pint (=570 mL) or 2/3 pint (=380 mL), it is still an odd size requiring odd sized glassware that doesn’t fit the OIML formula.
The urge to push the new size to 500 mL would give a more rounded metric look to the sale of beer, but would 500 mL still be too much? What about 400 mL? For anyone feeling a need to have a reference to pints, then why not call 600 mL a pint as is done in Australia and New Zealand for the sale of milk and 2/3 “pint” would work out to 400 mL exactly.
Then again why not remove all restrictions on glass sizes and let the market determine what size works best? Except that any glass size chosen must fit to the OIML formula.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Like Daniel, I thought about the 600 mL serving used in Australia and called a pint. It would be interesting to hear from anybody who knows how that increase in size from 568 ml rather than a decrease to 500 mL to produce a round metric number came about. But I imagine that some Australians expressed the same opposition to ‘downsizing’ from 568 to 500 mL that we might see in the UK if a 500 mL standard size is proposed. However, the whole idea of switching to metric sizes is to produce health benefits and clearly offering a larger glass as the standard would undermine that idea. It also has to be borne in mind that many beers have increased in alcoholic strength over the years and, as this has happened, people have unwittingly increased their alcohol consumption (with the complicit agreement of the Government, one must assume, as they oversee the legislation on the production and taxation of bee: a higher alcoholic strength means more revenue for the Government). So it seems like a very good idea to aim for a decrease in size and a move away from the very large imperial measure to a choice of metric sizes, while accepting that many beer drinkers like a large glass. A standard 500 mL is still a large serving and not so much less than the imperial pint that many people would notice the difference. If – if! – the pubs and other outlets that sell draught beer can be made to make a reasonable adjustment in price to offset the slightly smaller serving, I don’t see how anybody could really object to the slightly smaller glass. As many others have pointed out, there is nothing so special or sacrosanct about a 568 mL measure and it makes no sense to retain an imperial unit for draught beer when cans and bottles are sold in round metric sizes and other alcoholic beverages are sold in metric quantities. A 250 mL serving (the standard in some Continental countries) and a 330 mL would make very good additions to the range. If the serving sizes need names, why not call the 500 mL serving a pint, the 250 mL a half and 330 mL – I don’t have a suggestion! I’m sure the industry could come up with a name, perhaps one borrowed from Australia.
LikeLike
As the article points out, UK beer glasses are generally calibrated to the brim (rather than the more sensible practice used for wine glasses, where the measure is marked as a line on the glass). This obviously means that a full measure can only be served without a head of froth.
It’s interesting that Guinness now comes in 538-ml cans to allow for this design defect in pint glasses:
LikeLike
m,
I’d be curious how they fill the can to 538 mL when the machines that do the filling can only fill in increments of 10 mL. It seems that whoever came up with the label just subtracted 30 mL from 568 mL to get the 538 instead of subtracting it from 570 mL. If they subtracted 30 mL (a nice round number) from 570 mL, they would have gotten the correct fill amount of 540 mL.
Obviously in these companies, the left hand doesn’t have a clue as to what the right hand is doing.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Metricnow said:
…and 330 mL – I don’t have a suggestion! I’m sure the industry could come up with a name, perhaps one borrowed from Australia.
Well, 330 mL, just happens to be circa 0.667 or 2/3 of 500 mL. So, if 500 mL becomes the new pint than 330 mL becomes the new 2/3 pint.
Also, I wasn’t proposing that the pint be switched to 600 mL in order to bring on an increase in alcoholic consumption when everyone is clamouring for a decrease and is getting all excited about the 2/3 pint (=380 mL). If the pint was 600 mL, but no one served in this size anymore and were all heading in the direction of a 2/3 pint, then making the pint a nice round 600 mL then 2/3 pint becomes a nice round 400 mL instead of 500 mL.
It was just my way of trying to justify a round 400 mL over a not-so-round 380 mL.
I hope this clarifies my point.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Daniel wrote “Well, 330 mL, just happens to be circa 0.667 or 2/3 of 500 mL. So, if 500 mL becomes the new pint than 330 mL becomes the new 2/3 pint.”
I take your point. It’s interesting to note that British pubs don’t seem to have a name for the 2/3 pint measure, possibly because it’s hardly, if ever, used. But I don’t think it would make much sense to call 330 mL two-thirds of a (500 mL) pint. Personally , I’d like to see that particular fraction replaced with a nicer-sounding name. The British fractions always sound so utilitarian to me.
LikeLiked by 1 person
We have been over this ground before. See: https://metricviews.uk/2007/11/11/would-lined-beer-glasses-solve-the-pint-problem/
UKMA also responded in 2008 to a government consultation on prescribed quantities. See https://ukma.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/ukma-response-nwml-consultation-specified-quantities-2008-11-11.pdf
It is pleasing that the UKMA Chair managed to get a letter in the Guardian. He could have added that the difference between a half and two thirds of an imperial pint is onl 95 ml (about two gulps) and scarecely worth considering. See also https://metricviews.uk/2008/10/28/twother-or-twaddle/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Is the desire to find a name for each fractional size just a hangover from the imperial system? Isn’t that how we ended up with so many imperial measurement units? A pint being an eighth of a gallon, a gill being a quarter of a pint, etc.
Wine, on the other hand, is served in 125 ml, 175 ml or 250 ml measures, none of which has a name. If more than one size is available, customers just ask for a large glass or a small glass of wine.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2024/sep/27/aussies-know-size-doesnt-matter-unless-its-a-schooner
LikeLike
The nominal OIML recommended sizes for wine glasses are 100, 150, 200 and 250 ml (plus sizes that are allowed by local legislation).
LikeLike
m,
From the link you posted, a schooner of 425 mL is not any better than a 2/3 pint of 380 mL. why not just split the difference and make it 400 mL exactly? Maybe Australia needs to look over their sizes and just settle on increments of either 50 mL or better yet, 100 mL. A plethora of sizes is not needed.
LikeLike
I don’t doubt for a moment that the University of Cambridge conducted its investigation expertly, with statistics collated and rigorously analysed, as any university would.
But this investigates only part of the problem.
In the section headed “Methods of reducing alcohol production”, it is stated that governments have reduced the availability of cheap, high-strength drinks.
Maybe so, but other aspects seem to have gone in the other direction.
Examples:
Restrictions on the hours during which alcohol can be sold in shops have been lifted. So many supermarkets have moved their alcoholic drinks sections from the back of the store – where they could be easily cordoned off during closed hours – to much closer to the front, where they attract more attention.
Motorway service areas used to be “dry” places, quite understandably. But these are now also allowed to sell alcohol. I did not ask for this.
We seem to be pulling in two directions at once. It is like motoring along with one foot on the brake and the other on the gas.
I can draw comparisons with efforts to reduce smoking. The government has tried health warning printed on the packets, then ugly packet designs. More recently, cigarettes for sale must be stored in closed cupboards, out of sight of impressionable youngsters. But it seems perfectly OK to print CIGARETTES and TOBACCO in huge letters on the doors of these cupboards. Then there was the proposal to increase the permitted age to buy cigarettes by a year at a time each year. I can’t see that that would be workable. Imagine how that would look ten years from now.
“If you are lucky enough to look under 35, you will be required to provide proof that you are over 28.”
If we could force cigarette manufacturers to reduce the length of cigarettes by a third, I doubt whether this would make much difference either.
One measure has made a big difference in curtailing smoking. That is the ban on smoking in public buildings, which came into force in 2007. Even many smokers agree that the atmosphere in pubs has improved since this ruling. To nip out to the smoking shelter for a cigarette is a small price to pay.
How does this relate to metrication? Well rationalisation is probably easier than many think. Yesterday in a pub I poured the contents of a 330 ml bottle into a two-thirds-pint glass. It nicely filled the glass with a 2 cm head at the top. Likewise a half-litre poured into a pint glass would leave a head of similar size. Many beer drinkers like a head on the drink; it makes a statement about the quality of the beer. So if they get beer with a head in a pint glass, they are in fact getting about a half-litre. Would metrication of beer glasses really make much difference? It would simplify working out how many units of alcohol in a drink.
The University of Cambridge does not seem to have looked at the metrication aspect – just at how to implement alcohol consumption reduction using existing glass sizes.
I have long been of the opinion that beer should be sold in oversized, lined glasses. This provides for a head, avoiding short measure, and also reduces the risk of beer being spilt. It beats me how health and safety rules regarding spillages do not seem to apply to pubs. Also I would wish to see and “in-between” size for beer servings, as we have for wine. Two-thirds pint glasses do exist but beer is not generally served in this size; it is not promoted. I, among many, am not keen on loosing a size similar to the pint, even if in-between sizes are promoted.
Only a tiny percentage of pubs agreed to take part in the survey. What types of pub were these? I suspect up-market ones, whose sales come largely from non-alcoholic products.
Overall I estimate that the effect of banning pint glasses and replacing them with two-thirds ones, or metric equivalent, would have the effect of reducing alcohol consumption by a lot less than 8%, because there are many alternative sources of alcohol to pubs. Despite the good intentions of the University of Cambridge, I do not have a high expectation that this proposal will happen.
LikeLike
@m re Guinness cans:
It is interesting that Guinness is selling cans of just enough stout to fit a pint glass, albeit with the can size being quoted in metric.
It seems that Peroni is doing something similar. Yesterday, in a pub I ordered a Peroni lager. I was given an opened bottle to pour myself and a Peroni branded glass. I noticed that the size of the glass was two thirds of a pint. The contents of the bottle – 330 ml – fitted nicely into the bottle with an adequate head.
LikeLike
Metricmac wrote: “I, among many, am not keen on loosing a size similar to the pint, even if in-between sizes are promoted.”
I was under the impression that the idea was to offer that “in-between size”, while retaining a larger, traditional glass. But it would be a step forward and make practical sense to make all the sizes metric, as suggested in the article. There’s no real reason for preserving imperial units (as opposed to imperial size glass names) for draught sales of beer and cider alone, when all other drinks, whether dispensed in pubs or sold from supermarkets, are in metric sizes. For one thing, it would make prices comparisons of value for money infinitely simpler, though we all know we are going to pay more in a pub. As the article also points out, a 500mL glass would inevitably still be called a pint. That size is commonly used and called a pint in Europe.
LikeLike
Metricmac,
200 mL, 300 mL and 400 mL glassware for serving beer is already available:
https://www.ocean-glassware.com/products/pilsner-400ml/
I just checked one website, but I’m sure there are more. It would seem that if the English lawmakers who are still hung up on pint this and pint that pushes for a 2/3 pint serving glass, they will be stuck having to deal with the 400 mL glass size.
LikeLike
Daniel wrote, “200 mL, 300 mL and 400 mL glassware for serving beer is already available”.
Indeed, as are 500 ml lined glasses – the size suggested in the article as being more likely to be accepted by customers than the ⅔ pint size, e.g.
https://www.monarchycatering.com/peroni-pint-beer-glasses-6
The Cambridge research showed that reducing the beer glass size by 33% led to a reduction in consumption of only 10% – so presumably some customers were compensating by buying more glasses of beer.
A reduction in glass size of just 12% (replacing the 568 ml pint glass with a 500 ml size) might reduce any desire to buy extra glasses of beer, and might therefore actually lead to a reduction in consumption equal to the reduction in glass size. This would obviously be a more desirable result, healthwise, than switching to ⅔ pint glasses.
This ought to be considered by the research team in a follow up study.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Isaac,
We can’t assume from the linked page that the mention of the word “pint” means a 570 mL fill to the rim. With 500 mL marking appearing to be about 10 mm from the top rim, if we knew the diameter of the glass at the rim we could calculate the volume above the 500 mL line.
Peroni, being an Italian company, would obviously be biased towards rounded metric sizes and like the sparkling wine industry may consider the marked line amount of 500 mL to mean a pint. Thus the pint is referring to the 500 mL marking and not the fill to the rim. It is also possible that the fill to the rim would represent a 600 mL fill. To save cost and reduce inventory, Peroni would follow OIML guidelines as much as possible or just stick to making glassware in 100 mL increments.
LikeLike
570ml and 550ml are other viable options.
LikeLike