Let’s raise the bar on pouring proper pints of beer |

Damian Griffiths shares a witty response to an underpoured pint, while Robert Newton wants glasses with measure lines to be reintroduced. Plus letters from Rob Harris and Richard Luscombe

Are the short beer measures Imogen West-Knights refers to (Put your tape measure away – and enjoy your delicious underpoured pint, 28 May) made up for by the modern phenomenon of asking for a taste of beer before ordering? As one who misspent his youth in pubs in the north, I have gradually overcome the cringing this used to induce in me when my partner asked to taste one (sometimes even two) and now enjoy these free sips, despite knowing that my northern, male forebears are probably spinning in their graves. They would rather have backed the top-it-up approach, perhaps by an interchange with the bartender serving the underpoured pint such as the following: “Do you think you could fit a large whisky in there?” “Yes, certainly.” “Well, why don’t you fill it up with beer, then?”
Damian Griffiths
Buxton, Derbyshire

• May I be the first of many members of the “security council of beer-drinking” to suggest that the answer lies in the return of the lined measure glass instead of the brim measure that is now the norm. There would be less wastage in filling a pint glass with liquid beer to the line than in topping up a brim measure. Watching someone waste much more than a “thimbleful” of beer in trying to achieve the right balance between head and beer breaks my heart. What it does for the publican doesn’t bear thinking about.
Robert Newton
Uppermill, Greater Manchester