Straight or curved glass for your lager good sir or madame?
Thiiiink about it…..
So what is your preference?
Well, according to Attwood et
al. from the University of Bristol, the shape of your glass actually influences
how quickly you drink your alcoholic beverage (Attwood et al. 2012). Right? Well, they have some
pretty compelling evidence.
They monitored 159 social
drinkers (no history of alcohol abuse) over two sessions drinking either a
lager or a soft drink from a straight or curved glass that was either
completely full (12 oz) or half full (6 oz). They were timed to see how long it
took them to finish their drink, as well as complete a computerized task to
identify when the glass was half full. Here are the 12 oz. glasses.
The results are pretty crazy (to put it scientifically). The
groups that drank the lager from the straight glass, drank 60% slower than those
who drank out of the curved glass. There was no difference in drinking time for
the soft drink between glasses and the slower drinking also was not observed
when the subject only had a half glass of lager.
Interesting. I could imagine that this
is because with a more narrow base, it would appear that you are closer to the
end of your beer than you really are, thus, you might as well finish off what
you have and move on to the next one (or move onto what ever else is on your
agenda for the night). Maybe it is due to the amount left in the glass as you
increase the angle… (I edited and rotated glasses to 70 degrees to show that
the amount of beer left at that angle appears to be less for the curved glass)
This
is probably one of those things that bar owners and beer makers have known
forever and now someone just decided to do a study on it and share that info
with the world.
References:
Attwood AS, Scott-Samuel NE, Stothart G, Munafò MR (2012) Glass Shape Influences Consumption Rate for Alcoholic Beverages. PLoS ONE 7(8): e43007. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0043007
These results are pretty crazy, Joseph! I like how you tilted the glasses and illustrated that one cause might be that it looks as though there is less to drink. I would support that idea. Another possible influence could be that the alcohol drinkers need to go to the bathroom earlier and/or more often. Today in class we talked about how alcohol inhibits ADH. ADH inhibition results in decreased water reabsorbtion (back into the body rather than being urinated) and consequently greater frequency of urination. Perhaps the curved glass causes the perception that there is less alcohol than there actually is and therefor they decide to finish it quickly before running off to the long line of other alcohol drinkers waiting to use the restroom.
ReplyDeleteSo your post made me dig a little deeper into the perception of how much beer a person thinks they have left in their glass. One study found that the halfway point on a fluted glass is much more ambiguous. People often misjudge the volume of fluted glasses. Another similar study found that "social drinkers" pace themselves by how long it takes them to drink half of their drink. As a result, people are misjudging the time it takes them to drink half of their beer, and as you said Joe, they decide to just "finish off what they have left and move to the next one."
ReplyDeletehttp://news.sciencemag.org/sciencenow/2012/08/drinking-too-much-blame-your-gla.html
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ReplyDeleteNice leg work. As the cliche goes, perception is reality. In this "case", it seems to hold true. They have done studies looking at overeating and plate size. The studies show that people who use smaller plates eat less food. Like beer, people finish their plate and feel satisfied. So unlike beer, you order another plate. Now they need to hurry up and publish a study on the physics of Das Boot.
ReplyDeletehttp://toomuchonherplate.com/size-matters/