© 2024 Maine Public | Registered 501(c)(3) EIN: 22-3171529
Play Live Radio
Next Up:
0:00
0:00
0:00 0:00
Available On Air Stations
Scroll down to see all available streams.

When a Pint is Not a Pint: Maine Brouhaha Comes to a Head

Tom Porter
/
MPBN

AUGUSTA, Maine - When is a pint not a pint? Well, the answer is "quite often," according to some beer consumer advocates, who today argued their case at a public hearing in Augusta.
 

A bill currently before the Legislature would require bars and restaurants to ensure that when their customers order a pint of beer, they get the full 16 ounces.

"Can I have a pint of the ale please?"

"Absolutely."

The pint I've just ordered here at Ebenezer's Brew Pub in Brunswick seems adequate, both in quality and quantity. But according to one beer expert, that's not always the case in Maine.

"Well, oftentimes when you go to a bar or restaurant now, they advertise it as 16 ounces, but it's not 16 ounces," says Dr. Bumper White. "Mostly it's 14 ounces, because they want to leave that space for a head."

White is a former professor of education at the University of Southern Maine, and is now an activist in the Full Pint Association of Maine. To be clear, he's not accusing Maine breweries or pubs of cynically conspiring against beer drinkers, but "if you're going to call it a 16-ounce pint, it needs to be 16 ounces," he says. "We do that with everything else, we do it with maple syrup, we do it with motor oil, we do it with milk."
 

Credit Tom Porter / MPBN
/
MPBN
A 16-ounce beer glass sits on a table at Ebenezer's Brew Pub in Brunswick.

Tom Porter: "So are Maine drinkers being duped do you think? Is there a big fraud going on?"

Bumper White: "I don't know about a big fraud, but clearly there's a fraud, and as our industry gets larger and larger, that's a lot of beer that's not getting to the consumer, who's paying a full price and should get a full deal."

It's a debate that was taken up the following morning, in the more formal surroundings of a State House hearing room. Democratic state Sen. John Patrick, of Rumford, is the sponsor of LD 122, an Act to Standardize Pints of Beer Sold in Maine.
 
Patrick told members of the Joint Committee on Veterans and Legal Affairs that, with Maine's craft brewing industry now worth about $100 million, it's a good time to introduce this legislation. "To me, it's basically what I consider a truth in advertising deal."

Patrick says he decided to introduce the bill after hearing numerous complaints from constituents across the state, unhappy about the number of so-called "cheater" pints being poured. "And I have actually had dozens upon dozens of people thank me for bringing the bill forward," he says. "I didn't realize it would have this much impact."
 

Credit Tom Porter / MPBN
/
MPBN
Support for the full-pint movement at Ebenezer's Brew Pub in Brunswick.

Not everyone's a fan of the measure. Greg Dugal of the Maine Restaurant Association argues that there's no need for it. "I'm really concerned about the law of unintended consequences," Dugal says. "They're trying to do the right think and we end up creating something that we can't deal with."

Consumers should, of course, be entitled to what they pay for, he says. But adding another layer of enforcement would further complicate the issue, given that the state already has consumer protection laws to deal with this sort of complaint.

It was a point echoed by Sean Sullivan of the Maine Brewers' Guild. "We believe that crafting a beer-specific bill, targeting something that is already illegal, and shifting enforcement responsibilities to our already-overburdened liquor enforcement officials, would not be useful," Sullivan said.

Defenders of the bill, meanwhile, argue that they're not trying to overburden anyone. Bumper White says if bars are not serving a full pint, for whatever reason, they could simply call it something else. "There are lots of other alternatives: You can call it a mug, you can call it a tallboy, a tallgirl, whatever you want to do."

But, says White, you really shouldn't call it a pint unless it's a pint.