Ever wondered at the true size of that Pint of Beer that you just bought at your local Pub??

Well, if you are like most Canadians who regular the local pubs, you are being short changed on your Beer... :(

In Canada the standard Pint is about 17oz of Beer, however a True Pint should be 20oz. You are being short changed 3oz of beer per glass that you drink.... :mad:

Join the Pint Fight, help make Ottawa standardize the Pint to 20oz.

Pint Fight (http://pist.ca/newsi/pintfight.html)

Fill in the petition at the bottom of the page and get your local MP onto this.... :cool:

Cheers. :D
MrVermin

I'm on it, MrVermin. Big fan of pints that I am... few places I frequent actually pour a 20 oz beer. D@mn them. Thanks for the link.

The real Imperial pint is 541ml, not 568. This means that standardisation to 500ml robs you of 8%, not 12%, so you are '1/3 better off' than you thought...

Interestingly, Britain has won two exceptions from European rules regarding metric adoption: both beer and milk can be sold in pint sizes (and multiples). Everything else must be metric...

if this were to happen, wouldnt this just mean they would charge more for the extra 3 oz?

A real Pint is 568.2 ml, 20oz. We used to have pints in Canada, they were 568.2ml according to Measures Canada, it the same as Britian.

what this is about is that some bars call anything a pint. From as little as 8oz "pints." The standard in canada is 17.5 or 500ml, but often you get little american pints 16oz, you buy five of these "pints" and your out a one real Pint.

look around often Belgium beer costs the same as Irish import. Beligum beer glasses are frequently 12oz goblets and often listed as pints, Irish ones are usually real pints.

--bars charge what they can get away with, there are provincially regulated minimums - those would adjust accordingly, but if you find a bar that charges the minimum it will still be a lot cheaper than most fake pints.

If you want too learn more about The National Pist's Pint Fight check our site, subscribe to our paper, and please sign the petition.

All were asking is that if a bar sells "pints" they should be considered the same as advertizing a 20oz, 568.2ml drink. SERVING LESS THAN A PINT AND CALLING IT A PINT SHOULD BE CONSIDERED FRAUD.

With an undefined pint, by Measures Canada, it is not --and you as a consumer has no protection until they recognize it.

Our Government can't tell the difference between a tea cup and a pint -We should tell them.

The National Pist is proudly independent drinking news. www.pist.ca (http://www.pist.ca)

i always buy bottles of beer
1. many bars don't clean their lines very often resulting in bad tasting beer
2. the "pint" issue

Make it a "Steam Whistle" for me smile.gif

You are absolutely right ! My mistake. Perhaps it is the UK pint = 1.2 US pint that is at the source of the 'confusion'. Easier to buy US pint glasses (and pour less beer)?

Pints sold in pubs in our area are in fact American pints and hold 16 ounces. This is plainly evident when you buy a bottle and they give you a pint glass with it. The bottled beer fills the glass to exactly 3/4. Beer bottles used to be 12 ounces and it appears they still are very near that figure, only in metric.

Cheers

http://community.the-underdogs.org/smiley/happy/icon_beer.gif

Wonderings has got it-- it's ridiculous to think about campaigning to up the size of a pint of beer, as you'd simply be charged more. Or are you guy all kiddding here? Have I taken the bait?

" ... The standard in canada is 17.5 or 500ml, but often you get little american pints 16oz, you buy five of these "pints" and your out a one real Pint. ..."

16 US Standard ounces is 473.2ml (l USS pint) while 20 Imperial ounces is 568.25ml (I Imperial pint).

17.5 Imperial ounces is 497.2 ml.

Although a US pint is smaller, it's not as much smaller as you would think (1.5 ounces) because almost everyone forgets that a US ounce is bigger than an Imperial ounce.

By everyone, I mean everyone. Even the cookbooks can't seem to remember that one. A quick and easy reminder is a 12 ounce bottle (Imperial) of beer is 341 ml while all cans are sized in US ounces, therefore a can of beer is 355ml, even though they are both "12 ounces".

Comparing 16 ounce US pints to 17.5 Imperial ounce drinks:

Buy 5 US pints and you're out about 120ml, or roughly 4 1/4 Imperial ounces. You need to buy 20 US pints to be "out" one 17.5 Imperial ounce/500 ml drink.

(Don't know about anyone else on ehMac, but as a well seasoned veteran of the beer wars I know I would be "out" long before I managed to down 20 of any of these various sized glasses of beer).

Comparing drinks to Imperial Pints:

Buy 6 US pints to be out one Imperial pint, while it takes about 8 17.5 Imperial ounce drinks to be short one Imperial pint.

I'm not sure what it's like on Ontario, but in Saskatchewan there is a minimum pub price for beer and the smaller glasses are only around so that they can offer a glass for less "per drink" when they're trying to attract the college crowd.

Every bar has drink specials at the lowest price they can come up with, and the only way they can legally shave a quarter off the "advertised special" price is to make the glass a bit smaller than the "other" bars.

From the article:
" ... Given that, at best, a Canadian pint measures 17.6 (500ml) and costs an average of $6.00 ..."

Maybe it costs 6 bucks in Ontario; I'm pretty sure that it might be even higher in BC, but on the good-old-beer-lovin' Prairies charging that much would get you run out of town on a rail.

Try $3.75 a pint or $2.75 a bottle; maybe $4.50/3.25 if you're at some fancy big-city place. Hell, it's even way under five bucks at the Airport Lounge.

[ February 20, 2004, 02:35 AM: Message edited by: gordguide ]

The breadth and depth of knowledge that Gordguide seems to posses, never ceases to amaze...

And, as usual, he is right. A pint of beer, other than the yellow dogspew that Molsons or Labatts pumps out of their massive chemical refineries, costs upwards of six or seven bucks out here in BC.

But we have an astounding variety of seriously fine beers to choose from, here on the wet coast.

Pretty much all of the very best, from pretty much ANY country, is available. Even at some of the smaller bars.

PLUS some truly fine microbrews from the oldest small breweries in all of Canada. We were seriously into this stuff back in the early eighties.

Like fine bud production, we have gotten this beer stuff down to a science.

Drop by and see for yourself. ;) :cool:

(BTW...would I be correct to surmise that GordGuide has done some pretty serious research on this subject?)

gordguide

okay when I reffered to a 16oz pint "american pint" I did mean 16 Canadian ounces, sorry to have made it sound confusing, it could have been stated clearer, but most people aren't that anal about it, and if they are- then they are also anal about the proper way to cite measurements -- Ounces in canada when mentioned are always Canadian ounces, unless otherwise stated. Ounces are legal measurements here.

'buy 5 and your out one.' 20oz-16oz=4oz x5=20oz. thats pretty darn simple. Or would you prefer 16oz x 5= 80oz and 20oz x 5= 100oz then 80oz -100oz= -20oz (my god a pint is missing)

No need to change to metric to complicate things. Why, when talking of 20oz pints would we use the 17.5oz one here?

In Regina, in the heart of the praries a lot of bars charge near 6 bucks a pint, a 20oz pint. A pint of Guinness downtown will run you $7.50, some places do sell domestic for near $4.00, $5+ is much more common for a 20oz pint. $3.20 is the legal minimum for a pint in Saskatchewan according to the SLGA

For Canada $6 for 20oz was the average according to a rep. from the Brewers Association of Canada who generate stats on such things.

Measurement Canada's headoffice contacted me after the media coverage and said they have found Pints are still on the books and are 20 fluid ounces (568.2 ml). So Pints are defined in Canada.

A "Metrication Report" of 1977 that was going to axe the pint for good was never actually followed up on. It had a deadline of Dec 31, 1979 to make the pint obsolete and replaced by metric, but nothing was ever done. They said they were not even aware of these stipulations of that report. So it was just forgoten. Also in another report, "The Canadian Metric Commission's programme of guideline dates for metrication envisages that all normal daily transactions will be in metric by the end of 1980." Maybe a pint loving clerk accidently misplaced these, eh? smile.gif

dastardly bit of quoting from the article. That line actually reads:

"Given that, at best, a Canadian pint measures 17.6 (500ml) and costs an average of $6.00, you’re getting 88% of what you pay for. This translates to a loss of 72¢ per pint."

-well our reference to a "canadian pint" here is happily wrong anyway, as Canadian Pints we have learned are 20oz and are still recognized as such. It could have been polished to be clearer again in it use of "pint".

--we will gladly retract this statment in our pint update smile.gif next issue. On tv's ckck CTV News they even said a Canadian pint was actually 16oz. - and that was in response to the pint rally, no less.

At any rate I hope you enjoy the rest of our paper The National Pist -Drunken News from Pist Reporters.The Pint is but only one aspect of our dedication to covering drinking news. Our petition still stands as their is still no proactive protection that ensures that when a buy a "pint" that you get a pint, nor is there even an awarness campaign by Measurement Canada to tell people what a pint is.

www.pist.ca (http://www.pist.ca) - if you have a question for me you can always reach me in the forum there.

[ February 21, 2004, 04:23 AM: Message edited by: National Pist ]

I'm starting to think alcohol was involved in the starting of this thread....

Arguing over 3 ounces lost in a pint of beer? I find a pint of any size is too much beer. But I'm guessing most livers around here would differ.

Now if they sold chocolate milk by the pint... then I'd be up in arms regarding this subject.

Now if they sold chocolate milk by the pint... then I'd be up in arms regarding this subject.
If it doesn't have a head, it shouldn't be in this thread!

Cheers

:D

I’m sorry but instead of worrying about the size of pints we should be working toward the cost of the oz.’s or ml’s.

When I started drinking beer (which BTW was way to soon) in Halifax in 1969 you could buy 3 X 12 oz. (provincially regulated glasses) of draft beer cost $1.00. Now what does a 12 oz, 16 oz, 17.5 oz or 20 oz glass of beer cost. The correct answer too much!

The cost of beer has gone out of sight due to higher taxation by governments and maybe a little price gouging by the few multinational breweries left that dominate the market.

It is probably our fault. We allowed the stubbies to be withdrawn from the market. We were seduced by marketing.

Let’s get our focus on reasonably priced beer. If we only could agree on one beer to support. Or at the very least agree to boycott one beer thereby forcing that Company to lower prices to “purchase” market share then perhaps the prices would drop.

Let’s have some votes on “keeper” and “boycotters” what are your thoughts?