The Principles of Beer Reading

- Get some beer. For best results, this needs to be a pint of draught beer. Although real ale is generally to be considered optimal, this is largely on grounds of taste and good results have been observed with lager.

- Drink some of this beer.

- Check the beer for any emerging shapes.

- If you have a shape, congratulations! You can now read the beer.

- If you have an emergent shape but this is not presenting itself as anything definite, cultivate it by drinking more beer.

- If you have no shapes emerging, drink faster, or get a different beer.


- Shapes can be either positive (formed from the foam) or negative (formed from the spaces left by the foam). This will largely depend on the type of beer and how much foam it leaves on the glass.

- If you have a shape and want to record your research, photograph it. You will need a dark background against which to photograph the beer.

- When recording your research, note the type of beer, date, any other details about the situation that appear relevant, and what you think the shape is.

- That's pretty much it really.

As to what your reading might tell you - that's another question entirely. We would recommend getting an expert beer reader to interpret it.