The more western-oriented bars/restaurants around town know their stuff when it comes to looking after their beer glasses, but outside this relatively small group, it is the wild west.

I should point out that beer, soft drink and fruit juice are the only beverage options outside the more western-oriented bar/restaurants. And yes, I usually have fruit juice at lunch !

Now for a bit of theory. One of my old mates from years ago was a renowned destroyer of beer glasses. He knew it and everyone around him knew it. You could pour him a beer with a perfect head and within 1 minute of his first taste, the head would have disappeared and his beer looked like a ginger ale. And curiously, the effect was to destroy the glass’s ability to maintain a head for some weeks after this.

He had a problem of either curiously different body chemistry or was a really bad saliva dribbler into his glass.

The other well recognised method of destroying a beer is poor washing techniques. Not that I understand why, I never use any soap or detergent on my beer glasses and everything is fine. Any soap residue will destroy a glass.

But perhaps the biggest error is to wash beer glasses in water previously used to wash dinner plates, pots, pans etc.

I have no doubt this last error is the reason behind the almost total absence of a beer head in most establishments around town (apart from a select few who have separate beer glass washing machines).

So I made the ultimate decision yesterday – one of my faithful beer glasses will be drawn into daily duty and accompany me to all establishments. You gotta maintain your standards.