GRANDMA'S BEER GLASSWARE

An inheritance: Grandma's glassware, clockwise from upper left: (1) chalice, (2) "tulip," (3) "stange", and (4) snifter.

On the day of the memorial service for the maternal grandmother, the uncle and the mother decided to let all of the grandchildren visit the apartment of the maternal grandmother and see if there were any mementos that we would like to take and keep. I was immediately drawn to a small squeezebox—a miniature accordion that only has three buttons for chords on the side played by the left hand and seven buttons for a single diatonic scale on the side played by the right hand. It seemed out of place in the maternal grandmother's vast collection of knick-knacks and things, just as the maternal grandmother oftentimes seemed "out of place."

The next thing that caught my attention was a hutch whose top shelf was filled with various glasses, most related to alcohol of one sort or another. This is ironic, in that the maternal grandmother was an alcoholic who was "made" sober by cancer that got "out of hand" because she was in a state advanced alcoholism when the cancer first appeared. The cancer that made it impossible for her to drink any longer, and gave her another twenty years of life as a sober cancer survivor, changed her life. But, her love of hard liquor and beer must have still been harbored somewhere within her. Did she keep the glassware as a reminder of who she once was? Of who she was no longer? Of who she had become? Because she was a packrat? I will never know.

I decided to take four of the glasses that were best suited to my exploration of the world of beer. I chose the chalice for the Belgian ales that I hope to explore in more depth—dubbels, tripels, quadrupels, and others. I chose the stemmed "tulip" glass for some of those beers that just don't work as well in other glasses—Thomas Hardy's Ale or Traquair Jacobite Ale. I chose the Seichen "stange" glass because it is so different than other glassware I own, and it also allows me to enter new beer territory—trying the alt and kölsch styles. I chose the brandy snifter for increased pleasure with one of my favorite styles of beer—barleywine.

Now my collection of beer glassware is better able to handle some of those ale styles that I stumble across in my wanderings here and there. And, all thanks to Grandma!

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If anyone can better identify the "tulip" and "stange" glasses then please let me know...