How to Pour Beer From a Tap

Pouring a perfect pint requires a few simple steps and techniques.

1. 1. Choose a clean glass. You’ll want to preserve the taste of your beer—especially with craft beer. Even small amounts of residual dish soap, oil, or dust can change the flavor palate of your beer. Even seemingly clean glassware at home can have an invisible residue left by most common dish soaps that deplete some of the desired foam produced by beer. A good solution is to rinse a clean beer glass with cold water right before you pour the beer. Use a room-temperature glass since most beers achieve their fullest flavor and aroma between 50 and 55 degrees Fahrenheit.
2. 2. Select your beer. Most tap systems have more than one type of beer on tap at a time. These might include pale pilsner lagers, amber ales, or hoppy IPAs. All of these benefit from the following pour style to open up their unique flavors.
   
3. 3. Grab from the base of the tap handle. Pulling from the base of the tap handle is proper practice, since pulling from the very top can more easily put excess pressure on the faucet and cause it to break more quickly over time.
4. 4. Avoid contact with the faucet spout. To follow the best hygiene practices, keep the glass and the beer from touching the faucet spout.
5. 5. Hold the pint glass at a 45-degree angle. A perfect beer pour will result in a foam layer, or “head,” at the very top of the beverage after releasing some of the CO2 and opening up the aromas and flavors beneath the foam. To begin this process of agitating the carbonation in the liquid, aim for the center of the glass. It’s okay to pour hard or leave a healthy distance between the glass and the source of the pour since you’ll want some force to release an adequate amount of foam. There will still be carbon dioxide in the beer, but this process will help minimize bloat when drinking—a step that’s especially useful if you enjoy drinking beer with food.
6. 6. Begin turning the glass upright. Once the liquid reaches the halfway point of the beer glass, the foamy liquid will separate into a good head of foam above the liquid and you can begin to gradually tilt the glass back upright. You should have a half-inch to one-and-a-half-inch foam head at the brim when the glass is full.

Learn more about mixology from award-winning bartenders Lynnette Marrero and Ryan Chetiyawardana. Refine your palate, explore the world of spirits, and shake up the perfect cocktail for your next gathering with the MasterClass Annual Membership.