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What's your ideal size?They come in a multitude of shapes, sizes & colours with different sizes suiting different abv's & different beers, but when it comes to setting your stall out to produce popular accessible beers which size suits best?

In the picture the bottles start at 750ml descending to 660ml, 500ml, 375ml, 355ml to finally 330ml, the beers were a varying array of style & abv's.

The 660ml & the 355ml are US stalwarts, more commonly known as 'Bombers' & '12oz' ers respectively, then we have the UK standards 500ml & 330ml & a couple of odd sizes in 375ml & 750ml (champagne sized bottle).

Recently in the UK smaller measures have been forced into the limelight, no better example is BrewDog's standard 330ml bottles for all the beers they produce apart from the Abstrakt range. We have Evin at The Kernel releasing his 6% plus beers also in 330ml format, this size bottle is far from the norm in the UK, in the UK craft brewing scene the 500ml bottle still rules the roost. However, due to the huge popularity of BrewDog's 330ml revolution I believe we will shortly see more & more UK craft brewers adopt 330ml bottles to showcase their wares in.

We ourselves plan to bottle our beers in 330's as we feel the size is best suited for the abv's of the products we plan to bottle, but that isn't to say we won't produce limited special edition beers in varying sized bottles, as it is sometimes nice to have a large 'sharing' bottle of something special.

I do think glassware in UK beer scene has had some effect on the adoption of smaller sized bottles, particularly stemmed glassware often around the 350ml size are perfect for serving a 330ml bottle of beer allowing for head space, I think 500ml bottles have remained popular due to the pint pot (568ml) as a perfect serving vessel also allowing for head space, maybe various glass sizes will mean a proliferation of varying bottle sizes in the UK, who knows?

But for now I think the 330ml format is in for serious growth in UK & choice can only be a good thing, right? Also with canned beers having now put a toe in the door in the craft brewing sector, what are your thoughts on your ideal serving size? Are you a sharer, a traditionalist or are you more comfortable with 330ml becoming more common?


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