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CNN Live Today

How Much Foam is Too Much?

Aired March 20, 2002 - 10:55   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: How much foam is too much?

CNN's Matthew Chance bellies up to the bar to take measure.

(BEGIN VIDEOTAPE)

MATTHEW CHANCE, CNN CORRESPONDENT (voice-over): A nation of beer drinkers, divided over their pint. In pubs up and down Britain, debate has raged for years over exactly how this icon of British life should look like. It's an issue of froth, or head as its called here, and how much of it should be on top of a proper pint.

(on camera): I'm going to try and explain this controversy to you. On the left here, this is the current legal requirement for a pint of bitter: about 90 percent beer, 10 percent at the top, the head. On the other extreme, the 100 percent full pint of beer that a lot of people in this country have been campaigning for. It doesn't look very appetizing. There is a happy medium that's been reached.

Can you bring over the new legal pint of bitter?

CHANCE: Here it is, just 5 percent head at the top, 95 percent beer. Now, this sounds like a pint-sized controversy, but it's something a lot of people in Britain care a great deal about.

(voice-over): Take "Pint of Bitter Dave," as he's known here, a beer drinker for 40 years, he thinks the new rule could ruin his favorite pastime.

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: A pint without a head goes flat pretty quick. We're talking about bitter. It goes flat pretty quick. A head does tend to seal in the flavor, and that's how I like it. Take the head off a pint of Guinness and see what the Irish do, because that's what they are trying to do to us. Leave the head on my beer, please!

CHANCE: All right, but what about the beer drinkers equally demanding for a full pint every time, like Terry, who told me 95 percent is just one sip too little.

(on camera): Why is it, Terry, do you like your pints brimming over like that?

UNIDENTIFIED MALE: Number one, the price I'm paying, is I want a full pint. Number two is, personally, and a lot of other drinkers that don't want to drink through 5-10 percent of frothy head. They want to by drinking the beer straight away.

CHANCE (voice-over): There are economic implications. A few drops either way makes a big difference when you consider 27 million pints served in Britain every day. For British drinkers the idea that there can be a perfect one is proving an unattainable drink.

Matthew Chance, CNN, London.

(END VIDEOTAPE)

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