Losing My Head

Having had the dubious pleasure of working in a bar for a few months, i like to think that i know a good pint when I see one. It's actually a law in the UK that every pint poured has to have around 5% of a head on it. I suspect that this is also not widely known in the UK (or at least in Manchester), given the number of complaints I and my fellow bartenders used to get. This is also the reason why a lot of bars and pubs use slightly oversize glasses with a 'Pint to this line' marker on - so as to allow customers to make sure they are not getting short-changed as it were. This was also a bone of contention with the bar managers themselves - who would go rather crazy if pints didn't have a head on - simply because of money issues - for every pint with a thin head, they're losing money. It may not sound a lot when you think about it, but it soon adds up if you have a bar with high turnover.

Well, those managers would probably tear their hair out over here as virtually every single pint i've had poured here has had at the very most a head of perhaps a couple of millimetres or so (apart from, perhaps, the guinness or, at least not where they pour it correctly). Now you'd think on a pump that it would be impossible not to generate some head, but then you'd be wrong. At a sandwich bar (Norm's already mentioned), when i asked for a pint on draught, it came back with a couple of thin white swirls on top of the very flat pint. I had a good mind to a) throw it over the server, b) get behind the bar and show them how it was done c) demand another pint or d) all the above. As it happened, i settled for e) which was drink the thing and remind myself NEVER to get draught beer over here. At least you can't make bottled beer any worse than it might already be. Although having said that, i'll probably be proved wrong somewhere over here!!!