Beer glass sizes/names in South Australia stand alone nationally with theories about their origins unfulfilled
Numerous theories have tried to explain South Australia’s beer glass sizes and names: pint, schooner, butcher and pony.
South Australia’s beer glass sizes and names – pint, schooner, butcher and pony – remain oddities with their origin clouded.
Elsewhere in Australia, a pint of beer is 570 millilitres. In South Australia, it’s 452 millilitres. A South Australian schooner is 285 millilitres (slightly smaller than the interstate counterpart), a butcher is 200 millilitres and a pony is 140 millilitres.
The story behind the smaller pint glass in South Australia provokes several theories. One is that the strong Temperance movement, which forced pubs to close at 6pm for most of the early 20th Century, also lobbied for smaller glass sizes. Or it may have been a product of World War I or 1930s Depression austerity.
Various breweries offering imprecise bottle sizes began the practice of referring to “reputed” quarts or pints.
The long-controversial “reputed” pint changed from 18 fluid ounces to 17 luid ounces and in 1951 to the 16 fluid ounces fixed by the prices commissioner. By the 1980s, the reputed pint was down to 15 fluid ounces.
Imperial pints were popular during the 1990s with British and Irish pub but imperial half pints had been sold in South Australia in the 1850s.
World War II saw a decline in imperial pints. The federal government imposed higher beer taxes as part of the war effort, as it had in World War I. While New South Wales, Queensland and Western Australia decided to charge more for beer, South Australia kept prices the same but reduced the size of glasses.
The name “butcher” is itself a South Australian oddity. The most common theory about the name of the butcher glass refers to Adelaide city's Newmarket Hotel, on the corner of North and West terraces, near a 19th Century abattoir. The smaller butcher glass was said to be a favourite with abattoir workers, possibly because it wouldn’t slip through their bloodied fingers.
But other pubs close to butcher shops or meat works are credited with originating the name that was used at least as early as the 1880s – for glasses that were not always small. Or that the glasses were given to boys delivering meat to hotels. Or the name was influenced by South Australia’s strong German population, with “becher” meaning drinking vessel.
