The Simple Way To Discover Great New Beers When Traveling

If you're a beer fan, then local beers are an underrated sort of "tourist attraction" when you're traveling to a new town. There are plenty of cities with great beer scenes, and if you're looking for something uniquely local, it's worth your time to look up some local breweries in town. However, say you can't put back the beers like you used to — if you don't think you can drink more than one or two glasses in an evening, does that mean you can't sample much of a taproom's menu? Not quite: once you've found a local brewery, instead of ordering a full pint straight away, try ordering smaller pours first.

A small pour or a half pour refers to when the bartender gives you around half the normal size of a regular beer — hence the name — and it's sometimes served in a smaller glass and it's sometimes served in a half-full or half-empty pint. Beers that are normally poured in 16-ounce pint glasses might be poured into 8-ounce glasses instead, for example, although it varies. It's often slightly cheaper than a pint regardless, and it lets you sample different flavors without paying for too much beer that you can't (or shouldn't) drink all at once — craft beers often contain fairly high amounts of alcohol.

Ordering a half pour is a bit different than ordering a flight of beers, which is a selection of a few different beers in small glasses that typically only hold about three to five ounces. It's also a great way to get a small taste of different beers at once, but an entire flight does typically cost more than a regular pint of beer; it's not uncommon for a flight to cost somewhere between $10 and $20, which would surpass the cost of most beer pints.

The types of bars that are most likely to offer small pours and flights tend to be craft beer bars and local breweries, offering the kind of craft beers usually sold in tallboys in grocery stores. Even though half pours are slightly more common in the U.K. than the U.S., plenty of brewery taprooms will be ready if you ask for a sample because they attract lots of beer connoisseurs who want a taste of everything — you might get a raised eyebrow if you ask for a small pour of a commercial domestic beer, on the other hand, because you likely already know how those taste. If a specific IPA, pale ale, fruit sour, or other beer catches your attention while you're sampling the wares, you can easily ask the bartender for a full pint.