The best beer glasses will keep your beer cool and aerated, enhancing the malty, hoppy tastes. From classic American styles, to tulips and steins, these are what you need.

Decor Ideas. Project Inspiration. Expert Advice. Delivered to your inbox.

Thank you for signing up to Homes & Gardens. You will receive a verification email shortly.

There was a problem. Please refresh the page and try again.

Drinking cold beer from one of the best beer glasses on the market makes a huge difference. Sure, it's faster to just drink from the can or the bottle, but a specialized glass will enhance the aromas, create the perfect beer head, and keep your beer cool.

Crafting the perfect glass for your beer is an art form which many have mastered. Different styles suit specific beer drinkers, from the ubiquitous American beer glasses to more niche Teku and Weizen glasses.

If you want the perfect glass, rest assured, I've done the research. After looking through thousands of beer glasses, speaking to specialist brewers, and reading reviews I've narrowed it down to the nine beer glasses that you need.

Whether you're looing to create an garden bar or you want to design a bar in your home, these are an essential. Beer always tastes better when drunk from the right glass.

Best all-rounder

Capacity: 16 fl ozMaterial: glassDishwasher safe: yesSet size: 12

This reliable, classic beer glass is also known as the American beer glass. It's slightly wider at the top than at the base and is well suited for a range of different beers, especially American lagers like Budweiser, Coors, or Sam Adams. These are inexpensive and easy to store, but not for more specialised wheat beers.

Best British ales

Capacity: 20 fl ozMaterial: glassDishwasher safe: yesSet size: 4

A classic British pint glass. Imperial beer glasses are bigger than the average American glass, holding about 20 fl oz. Also known as 'nonic' glass, they have a small bulge at the top, which helps prevent you from spilling beer as you sip. If you like British-style lager or ales like Newcastle Brown, this is for you.

Best for lagers

Capacity: 16 fl ozMaterial: glassDishwasher safe: yesSet size: 4

Similar to tulip glasses, the handle on these mugs prevents you from warming up your beer. That makes it excellent for lager, particularly German lager. These glasses are robust and stylish, similar to Bavarian beer steins.

Best for pilsners

Capacity: 14.5 fl ozMaterial: glassDishwasher safe: yesSet size: 4

Pilsner glasses are characteristically tall, slim, and wide at the mouth. They allow for lighter beers like Bitburger to show off their sparkle and clarity, whilst supporting a firm beer head, channelling the aromatic flavors. This is a perfect example, but like other pilsner glasses it's pretty limited in capacity.

Best for Belgians

Capacity: 15.5 fl ozMaterial: glassDishwasher safe: yesSet size: 4

The bulbous body of this tulip glass suits the aromas of malty, hoppy beers. If you drink Belgian beers like Chimay or Duvel, this is for you. The short stem makes it easy to swirl, whilst the flared lip captures the beer's head and enhances the aromas of your chosen beer.

Best for IPAs

Capacity: 19.2 fl ozMaterial: crystalDishwasher safe: yesSet size: 4

This glass suits a range of IPAs, but especially hoppy American IPAs. The ridges aerate hoppy beers, encouraging a steady stream of bubbles up the tall, tapered glass. Your beer will taste more aromatic, especially with nucleated, or etched bottoms like this.

Best for stouts

Capacity: 15.5 fl ozMaterial: crystalDishwasher safe: yesSet size: 4

With a bowl-like body, this glass is shaped for malts and rich beers – in short, for stouts. The angled glass nurtures notes of coffee and chocolate, which are typically found in stout beers. This feels thick and premium too.

Best for wheat beer

Capacity: 24.7 ozMaterial: glass (lead-free crystal)Dishwasher safe: yesSet size: 4

If you like the banana and clove aromas of wei?biers like Blue Moon and Hoegaarden, you need a weizen glass. The thin walls of this glass show off the exquisite color of this brew, whilst the thick top helps support the fluffy head typical of wheat beers.

Best for sour beers

Capacity: 14.2 fl ozMaterial: glassDishwasher safe: yesSet size: 6

If you like sour beers, you'll love this glass. It has a luxurious feel with a smooth, wide bowl for swirling. The long, thin lip helps to develop the aromas in your beer and you can hold the stem, so your beer doesn't warm up.

There are a range of beer glasses that you are likely to have encountered: a pint, a classic, and an American pint glass, which is wider and then narrows at the bottom. These are most popular, but they don't work for every type of beer.

Experts at The Crafty Cask say that a beer glass should open up flavors, hold the foamy head, and direct your nose to the aroma for the beer. Specific beers might require specific glasses, for example wheat beers are best served in Weizen glasses, which are like Pilsner and Strange glasses. They're slim at the bottom with a wide rim at the top to enocourage carbonation.

The Crafty Cask says 'different beer glass shapes will cause the beer to hit your palate in different places when you take a sip. The long, straight trajectory of a Pilsner glass with direct the beer toward the black-mid mouth, but a flared lip of a tulip glass, which is well-suited to a porter, will introduce the dense, powerful beer into your mouth more gently'.

The short answer is that it depends on the type of beer. A glass stein is best for lagers, as the handle stops the heat from your hand warming your beer too much. This isn't a problem for traditional British ales, which drink a lot warmer, so a classic nonic pint glass with a bulge to stop you spilling your drink is best here.

A tulip-shaped glass is best for Belgian beers, as the flared lip makes it easy to make a thick head that dissipates gas and stops you from feeling bloated. Pilsners, on the other hand, do best with a tall, thin glass. American straight glasses, however, can work for pretty much any situation.

It can get really niche – for example, k?lsch beers from Cologne should be served in a k?lsch, a tiny 8oz glass.

Some people rinse their glass, so that the water acts as a 'lubricant'. The experts at Allagash Brewing Company say that 'the extremely thin layer of water reduces the friction between beer and glass. Less friction means less foam and less change of a foam over. This results in less wasted beer and a better looking glass.

Experts say that tilting the beer glass to 45 degrees will prevent the beer from foaming too much. This means that your beer will have a smoother taste, plus you'll be able to fill your glass to its full capacity.

There's a different type of beer for every drinker. If you want to play it safe, I would opt for a classic, American beer glass. These are durable, stackable, and tend to be reasonably priced too. However, for the specialist drinker, buying a beer glass designed to enhance off your favorite drink will pay off.

At Homes & Gardens we like to test everything before we recommend it to you. However, in the case of beer glasses, much as we would have enjoyed drinking lots of beer, we could not.

In the absence of physical tests, our shopping expert, Laura, scoured thousands of beer glasses from across the internet. She spoke to expert brewers to find out the details behind each beer glass, and read extensive reviews to give a representative sense of what each glass is like to use.

If you'd like to know more about how we test, you can visit our dedicated test page.

Decor Ideas. Project Inspiration. Expert Advice. Delivered to your inbox.

Laura is our eCommerce editor. Before Homes & Gardens she studied English at Oxford University. Alongside her studies, she qualified as a barista and trained as a master perfumer. This makes her our certified expert for all things coffee, candles, and fragrance. She has passed our five-step tests to become a certified Customer Advisor, making her our resident expert. Laura has worked for luxury retail brands, reinforcing the importance of quality and style over quantity and fads. She looks for products which have been designed with thoughtful finishes.

Expert designer Nate Berkus shares five steps to create a stylish dinner table setting – we break down each step to help you elevate your hosting experience

By Emily MoormanPublished 30 August 23

Switching out your ordinary cookware for a fall-themed alternative has never been more enticing than with Le Creuset's new collection

By Lola HoultonPublished 30 August 23