YOU could drink beer straight from the bottle, as we do. But for hardcore beer lovers, this special brew — especially small-batch craft beers that are cooked up in small breweries — deserves a special glass.
There are many different glasses for beers, actually, but they have a distinctive shape that makes the aroma of the beer more pronounced.
“I would say that a glass would probably make up about 60 percent of the entire beer experience," said Jazel Paraiso, who is the sales and marketing manager for Juggies, a local distributor of craft beers.
She explained, "Now why is that? If you’re drinking from a craft beer glass, normally it has a tulip [shape] here. Because it’s [shaped like that], if you smell your beer it really gives weight to a lot of the aromas that you need to be able experience the beer in its entirety."
One experiment that Paraiso — who would be the first to admit that she is quite a beer snob — likes to do is to pour craft beer into a normal glass, pour another out in a craft beer glass, and carefully compare the aroma wafting out of both.
“You will find that the smell in a standard beer glass is about 80 percent less than it would be than if you were drinking from a [specialized] glass,” she said.

But even if you don’t have a craft beer glass, there’s a huge difference in quality between a commercial beer and a craft beer.
“They make beer the traditional way,” said Paraiso of the independent brewers who cook up small batches of craft beer, “with one hundred percent pure malt, hops, yeast, and water.” There are none of what Paraiso called “adjunct ingredients” — extenders like corn, rice, and sugar. They’re also served soon after they’re brewed.
“There’s also, of course, that added experience because they come from a lot of smaller microbreweries that have very unique and very creative minds. So every beer will have a very special story,” she continued. By story, of course, she also means flavor: the distinctive flavor combo cooked up by the brewer that goes into their beer.
This explains, too, why craft beers are expensive.
But if you’ve stopped going out to bars to get sloshed, you might as well take the time to savor the experience of drinking at home.
Which craft beer should you order?
If you mean to treat yourself to a craft brew experience, Paraiso had some pointers on what to get.
She outlined six distinct beer styles, arranged from lightest to darkest: blonde ale, wheat beer, pilsner or lager, pale ale, IPA (or India pale ale), and a dark beer or stout.
Generally, the lighter the beer is, the less bitter it is. Light and sweet beers like blonde ales or wheat beers may also contain floral, fruity, or tropical notes, or even have a bit of honey. “They’re very very easy to drink,” said Paraiso.

The clean and crisp beers are the pilsners and pale ales. “They’re a little bit similar to commercial lagers,” she described, saying that they stride the middle ground when it comes to sweetness and bitterness. Pale ales are a bit more amber in color compared to pilsners, and are “very fruity, [but they] have a bitter kick in the end.”
The last two beers in the list — the IPAs and the dark beers — are the strong beers.
The term IPA pops up a lot in craft beer discussions, and Paraiso acknowledged that it is a very popular category. “They have a lot of hops, which makes them a lot more hop forward, they’re very fruity, they have a robust flavor, and they’re usually quite bitter,” she said.
Dark beers, finally, include roasted malt and roasted barley brews. Order one of these for a very caramel, very coffee-like experience.
Once you’ve figured out which of the six styles of beer you want to order, Juggies PH, a company run by Jazel and her partner, can deliver your choice of local or imported brew and deliver it to your house inside large, plastic insulated beer barrels. (Check out their website for full details.) When it arrives, just pour one out, smell the aroma, and enjoy your stay-at-home craft brew beer experience.
Spin fans unite at the Spin Viber Community! Join the growing community now and complete the experience by subscribing to the Spin Chatbot.
Get more of the latest sports news & updates on SPIN.ph