Drinking from a pewter mug?

Question

Modern beer is typically served in glassware, and the reasons for the various styles are addressed in What glasses are meant for which beers and why?

I have some alternative vessels at home, including a pewter tankard. The problem I have with drinking from it is that the pewter has a slight tang which you notice on your lips and the tip of your tongue. Depending on the the style of beer, this can either enhance or detract from the taste. (Personally, I've noticed that hefeweizen benefits from the slight acidic tinge, while some Lagers are really undrinkable from it.)

Are there any styles of beer for which it's actually advantageous to drink from something other than glassware, like pewter? Say, for example, they've been brewed specifically to pair well with the material of the vessel.

Alternatively, should I even be drinking from this kind of vessel at all? While it's documented that pewter and other materials were used historically to make tankards, should I even be bothering today or is it just a gimmick?

Answer 1

To be honest, I think drinking carbonated (with CO2 at least) beer from pewter is asking for trouble if you do it regularly. The tang you feel is dissolved metal and a component of that, depending on the pewter, may be lead (or could be copper, tin, bismuth, antimony, etc). A major factor in that is acidity, and both hops and carbonation contribute.

Acidic solutions react with metals to produce hydrogen gas and dissolved metal salts. So carbonic acid from carbonated beer will react with the tin to produce hydrogen and tin carbonate, and the same basic process with other metals. The specific metal that reacts will depend on the pewter.

There are some ways around this. You could, for example, coat the inside of the vessel with bees wax. This can then be washed by hand with hot tap water and soap (and is a common method in making drinking horns). This has the pro/con (depending on your taste) of imparting a slight honey taste to everything you drink out of the vessel.

Answer 2

There really isn't any reason why a modern pewter tankard would be harmful to drink from. Lead has been illegal in pewter drinkware in the USA and western europe (at least) for decades now. The FDA is widely considered VERY risk-averse and they are fine with pewter when it doesn't contain lead greater than a trace amount (see FDA regulation 4-101.13(B)).

The other metals in pewter - mostly tin, with some copper and (usually) antimony - are very unlikely to cause a problem because they won't be absorbed into the beer in any material quantity, and because they are generally not harmful if they were absorbed (see this page about pewter tankards). Remember tin's role as a coating for the inside of food containers?

NOTE: older pewter may well contain lead, and this is soluble in beer, and this is not safe. The lead dissolving is what causes 'pitting' on the inside of older pewter tankards.

As to whether it's more enjoyable to drink out of glass or pewter, really comes down to personal taste. I enjoy both.

Answer 3

You're right to have identified a peculiar flavor coming from pewter. There are two parts to this: the leaching of the metals as mentioned by Chris as well as the oxidation of lipids in your mouth. In my opinion neither of these is particularly pleasant.

That being said, when pewter was phased out in favor of glass, there were many who held on to their pewter tankards for drinking porter. Ron Pattinson shares an anecdote about an Irish MP who would hide his pewter mug under the table to avoid the critical eye of others in the pub. Today you might get a similar reaction from craft beer drinkers appalled at your treatment of the beer.

Answer 4

I doubt very much there are any detectable metallic elements in the beer you're drinking from being a few minutes in a pewter tankard - however old/ antique pewter does contain lead, and likely is best avoided. What may be happening is that there could be a very slight electric current from a reaction of the beer with the metal on your tongue producing a very small voltage, which give you this metallic "taste" - you get the same, more obvious effect, from a small battery. I mostly drink from a cast pewter tankard for three reasons, it looks the part, it was a present, and you get a better head. However, it would be true that many beer drinkers prefer glass. I think a tankard though is good for more traditional and darker beers, but a glass for lagers and lighter beers - which is what I do. Don't forget millions of beer drinkers drink straight from an aluminium can, and the beer will have been in that can possibly for months. So what about aluminium toxicity and Alzeimers?? I am joking, a bit.

Answer 5

So many white metal alloys are called "pewter" in the present day that there's no way to tell if you don't know the manufacturer. Traditional pewter had lead. You probably don't have traditional pewter. Britannia metal is very shiny and smooth. It has 6% antimony and 2% copper. Do not drink anything acidic (like beer) from Britannia metal. Other pewters have more tin, but still have antimony. There are also metals that are "pewter-like" but are aluminum. If you're okay drinking beer from an uncoated aluminum can... But you can't tell if you don't know the actual metal composition.