How to Clean & Properly Care For Your Beer Glasses

Okay, you've ordered some cool beer glasses from us and now you need to know how to properly care for them so they enjoy a long service life in your home bar.  Here's what to do once you beer glasses arrive and you have removed them from their shipping packaging.

1. Hand-wash all your glasses with mild dish washing liquid and a clean sponge.

2. Rinse thoroughly with clean water.

3. Let the beer glass air-dry. A bar mat is an excellent way to allow the glass to air dry.  Never place fragile beer glasses in a dishwasher to be broken, damaged or left with an unwanted residue that could effect flavor, aroma and head retention of the beer you pour into it.

4. Polish the dry glasses with a clean bar towel, if you choose, prior to pouring the beer into the glass.

Rules of Thumb for Beer Glass Care

1. Thermal shock isnt your beer glasswares friend.  Never pour ice cold beer in a hot beer glass.  Conversely, never pour hot liquid in a cold beer glass.

2. Don't put beer glasses in your freezer.  Cool your beer not the glass.  A beer glass fresh from the freezer really doesn't do much to cool or keep cool the content poured in the glass.  All it really does is make the icy and slippery and therefore increasing the chance for breakage.  Beside, beer served just above the freezing point isnt enjoyable.  The freezing cold beer will numb your tongue and all its flavor receptors. Serving beer freezing cold is method pushed by beer producers that make flavorless beer.

3. Don't put beer glassware an ice maker or ice filled cooler.  This a cardinal rule in the bar industry.  The beer glass can easy break as its placed in the ice or it could break from thermal shock.  Now you have broken glass mixed in with the ice and there isn't a good way to separate the glass from the ice.  Now you have to dispose of all the ice in the ice maker or cooler. 

4. If you break a beer glass on the floor, localized clean up isn't enough.  When a glass smashes on the floor the glass shards can be scattered further and wider than you might expect.  You should sweep/vacuum the entire area where the glass could have been dispersed.  This includes under chairs, appliances, etc.   Its best to find the glass with your broom now rather than with your barefoot later.

5. Beer glasses should be stored upside down.  This prevents stuff from falling in them when not in use.