How the f*ck do you order a beer around Aus?
Australia's beer sizes not only differ from those around the world, but also vary when one traverses across state lines. In this very short, but sweet, blog we are going to breakdown what a beer is called in each state. Depending on where you're from, if you get on a plane for two hours here in Australia the entire definition of a beer order changes and all of a sudden you've got schooeys that are pots.
So, below you'll find a table breakdown of what we are looking at.
Obviously we have some very similar sizing in pints and schooners - with one obvious outlier - and then we get into the weirdness when it comes to the small sized beers. Like what the hell is a handle?
Now why is South Aus so weird? Well in short, it's because of taxation.
In the Commonwealth of Australia's Parliamentary Debates of 1904 (p.8534), Chris Watson (who went on to become the 3rd Prime Minister) made a statement about the brewers of Sydney strongly objecting to a proposal for an excise duty on beer. The sentiment amongst Sydney's brewers was that the additional cost would be difficult to pass on to the consumer, and in fact they had thus far failed to do so. In response Alexander Poynton, said that the tax had successfully been passed from brewers to consumers in South Australia by making the glasses smaller.
That's a snippet from a not so trustworthy google search but from what we learnt it's less tax on beer. So SA aren't the worst people in Australia with their beer names for that, but come on guys we can change it now right?
Queensland and Victoria have it figured out in our opinion, a middy is a dumb term and that's not to mention whatever the hell is going on in NT and Tassie, but we don't really talk about them anyway.
So what's your favourite beer size?
I stand corrected the info is correct it’s other beer sites listing Western Australia as having 485 ml as a pint size my apologies 🍺🍺🍺
Gday guys just fyi in Western Australia we have imperial pints 570 ml not the smaller one listed on this post cheers 🍺🍺🍺
1. I am in Victoria
2. When I started drinking it seemed only ponies and glasses were served. We were big drinkers at 18 so drank glasses
3. At Uni the queues were long and pots were available. At first we struggled to drink them cold all the way to the end. After a 3 year course we knocked them back easily. Glasses were never ordered again
4. Roll the clock through nearly 40 years of drinking pots and schooners were creeping in from NSW. Transition number 2 and becoming a senior meant staying seated longer, schooners were go go.
What number am I up to? 5? Pints, check out the size of that. OK I will have one. Start with that, scale back to Schooner and end on a pot. Glass is for the teeth.
6. Jug is for a party of 4 or more only and always drink in pots sized glasses.