REGINA — Always drink beer from a glass — the right glass — and never straight from the bottle or can, says beer expert Guy McClelland, who was in Regina recently for Festiv-Ale, a two-day international beer and food tasting event at the Conexus Arts Centre.

That’s true for all beer, not just fancy imports.

That’s because a naturally fermented beer on average contains about 2.5 volumes of carbon dioxide,” McClelland explained. So if you drink it right out of the can or bottle, you’re essentially putting a bottle of water and 2½ bottles of gas in your stomach. And that will no doubt leave you feeling bloated.

“Beer was not meant to be consumed that way,” McClelland emphasized.

“The gas that gives beer its characteristic bite or bubbliness or effervescence is a natural aspect of fermentation. But it’s really intended that you explode some of that out when you pour it,” he said. “That’s going to give the beer the right taste, mouth feel and greatly reduce the filling or bloatingness that can come from the beer.”

Like wine, for optimum appreciation, you should drink beer from the right kind of glass, McClelland said.

Think of ale as red wine and lager as white wine, he suggested.

“Ale is much more robust, aromatic, flavourful, whereas lager by comparison would be considered to be less robust and, dare I say, bland in comparison,” McClelland said. “So with an ale, you want a wide-open top glass. Ale should have a wider top than the height of the glass, generally speaking. And a lager glass should be much taller than wide.”

“Different styles and characteristics of beer can be best accentuated by the right-shaped glass,” he insisted.

“There are a lot of well-popularized myths about beer in Canada,” noted McClelland, who is president of Mississauga-based McClelland Premium Imports, which brings some of Europe’s finest beers to Canada.

Perhaps one of the most common is the idea that Canadian beer is stronger than American beer. “It is a complete myth,” insisted McClelland, who boasts more than 25 years of experience in the Canadian beer industry.

“The fact is, in Canada we measure alcohol differently than the Americans do. We measure by volume — so volume of alcohol versus volume of water gives an alcohol percentage. It’s volumetric. Whereas in the United States, they measure alcohol content by weight. And because alcohol is far less dense than water, a lower number by weight is a higher number by volume,” he explained. “So four per cent in the U.S. is five per cent in Canada,”

“Because it also has a light taste, it tricks Canadians into thinking it’s actually weaker beer. And it’s absolutely not true. You’re every bit as inebriated,”McClelland pointed out.

Another of McClelland’s favourite beer myths relates to the colour of beer.

“A very high percentage of Canadians believe that the darker the colour of a beer, the stronger or more intense the flavour will be,” he said.

False!

“The colour of beer comes from how long the malts are roasted,” McClelland said.“It’s really just a colour choice by the brewer. It really has nothing to do with things like bitterness, which come from the hops.”

He cited the example of Erdinger Dunkel beer, which is “as black as Guinness, but is possibly one of the lightest beers on the market.” It’s light because the malt is wheat, and because the hops are very low, whereas Guinness is highly hopped and made with barley, which makes a big difference in the taste, he explained.

“So while a dark beer can be perceived as strong, there is no correlation between the colour and the taste intensity,” he insisted. “I love busting that myth!”

The beer belly myth is also something McClelland would like to help dispel.

“A lot of Canadians perceive that beer is high in calories, or fattening,” he said. “That’s one of the reasons many females shy away from beer.”

But beer is actually low in calories, McClelland said. “It’s probably just somewhere above water and tea.”

Women in particular often choose spirit-based coolers over beer because they think they’re lower in calories, McClelland said, noting nothing could be further from the truth. For example, one popular spirit-based cooler has 385 calories in a 12-ounce bottle, which is triple what the same volume of beer would have, he said.

“It’s quite amazing how off-base people are in their assumptions or beliefs and perceptions,” McClelland said.

A beer belly is really a “lifestyle belly,” he said. “It’s about sedentary lifestyle, lack of exercise, poor diet in form or in portion. Yeah, maybe the person also drinks beer. But that doesn’t mean the beer necessarily caused his beer belly.”

Describing himself as a heavy beer drinker, McClelland noted that he maintains a svelte 30-inch waistline — no signs of a beer belly.

As baby boomers find themselves with more disposable income and, as a result, in a position to treat themselves to more of the finer things in life, McClelland predicted demand for fine wines and good beers will continue to grow.

“The style and sophistication of beer is rapidly gaining,” he said. “But it’s probably 20 years behind wine.

In 1992, when he started working in import beer, McClelland said the market share of import beer, compared to total beer sales, was about five per cent. Now it’s 15 per cent.

“So it’s tripled in proportion of total beer sales in less than 20 years. And I see that trend continuing, honestly, another good five (to) 10 years,” he said.

Like other image-driven products, such as cars, coffee, wine and clothing, McClelland said he anticipates consumers will willingly pay extra for imported beers if they perceive them to be “better, different, special.”

“Import beers are now having greater access to the market,” he said. “That’s good for us as consumers. There’s more choice.”

And for McClelland, that’s good for business. He’ll definitely drink to that!

iseiberling@leaderpost.com

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