When I started drinking, back in the 70's, this is what beer usually came in. If you wanted a straight glass, or a 'tall hat' as they were called, you had to ask for one.
Glasses must have looked like this forever. Or maybe not.
The 'dimple' glass didn't exist before the late 1940's. It was designed for two connected purposes; and when these became obsolete, it was replaced.
Until the turn of the century, beer came in pewter or porcelain tankards. You didn't want to see the bits floating in your pint back then. But as pubs became lighter, and beer became clearer, glass manufacturers spied an opportunity.
The first mass produced beer glasses tended to be straight and handle -
less. In the late 1920s ten - sided, handled pots became the norm; these
featured in many 1930s adverts. The dimple glass's arrival heralded the triumph of lighter beers over dark mild and porter. And brewers liked the way their products shone and glittered in the new glasses. They were also tough, easy to wash and resistant to the curse of the straight glass, chipping of the lip during storage.In the 1960s, however, the dimple's nemesis arrived in the shape of the 'nonik' (no nick) glass.
The bulge around the top kept the lips of adjacent glasses from grinding together. Cheaper to make, easier to store and pack into the new-fangled pot washing machines. Add to this the rising popularity of lager, which doesn't have the beautiful, shifting gleam of bitter through the patterns on the pot, and straight glasses have ruled the world of beer ever since. I was astonished to be given a dimple glass in a pub in Saltaire as a matter of course. It was like going back in time.
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