Best Beer Glasses to Buy in 2024

The best beer glasses, like any coveted item, have changed over the years. 8-tracks became cassette tapes, became CDs, became iPods, became Spotify. Are we right? While we don’t expect to drink digitally anytime soon, despite the growth of AI, we have seen glassware in the U.S. transform.

Most importantly, we’ve seen a shift away from the awful shaker pint that we adopted for some reason (well, actually, there is a good reason. It’s a very stackable glass that can save space behind a bar). And respect has been paid to #properglassware.

Certain beer styles simply present, smell, and taste better in the right glass. So yes, that nucleation—custom laser-etched grooves inside the bottom of glasses—is not just for show. That extra detail gives dissolved CO2 something to bump into, creating more bubbles and a nice stream of fizz. Who would have thought!? Extra bubbles carry more aroma to the surface, giving you a better drinking experience.

Innovations like these continue to drive glassware forward. Although, some—like this bulbous beauty BlackStack highlighted in a juicy IG post—might just be for funsies. And that’s okay, too, because we love a statement piece!

But what we love more is when you pour that kölsch into a stange, aka kölsch glass, explicitly designed to keep that style cold and fresh.

An OG piece that we update every year, this list of the best types of beer glasses of 2024 is based on what we’ve seen trending in the industry. And a few of our favorites from breweries across the country.

What we’re finding more and more (and what you’ll see below) is sometimes it’s less about the style of glass and more about the brand. When brands like Permanent Hangover, Pilsnerish, The Craft Diaries, or Primitive Glassware drop something, you gotta be on your game to grab it while you can. Right now, it’s almost like the shinier, crazier, and “golder” the design, the better.

From gold-rimmed hexagonal goblets to artist-collab diner mugs, these are some of our favorite beer glasses of 2024. Whether you buy one or two of these for the beer lover this holiday season or just to add to your collection, we won’t tell.

Hop Culture’s Picks for the Best Beer Glasses to Buy Right Now

Barrel Cooler Glass

Eponymously named because it’s best for barrel-aged beers, the barrel cooler glass saw some traction this year because it’s quite a unique shape. We chose this shape for our NEW Keg Stand Glass…and it sold out within 24 hours. We think that says it all for this glass.

Consider this glass a true statement piece.

While the Keg Stand Glass is all gone, be the first to know when it comes back and any of our new merch drops by… joining the waitlist!

Primitive Glassware

We’re not sure we’ve seen one glassware company mentioned and tagged more in brewery or beer influence posts than @primitiveglassware. Probably because these glasses are absolutely stunning. A part of a company called Primitive Glass started by glassblower Daniel Schircliff, Primitive Glassware expresses Shircliff’s love for fire. The sort of mid-century-meets-modern glasses fuse one-of-a-kind designs into something you won’t see anywhere else.

Thick and expertly made, Primitive Glass’ beer glasses are “heavy enough to break a toe,” writes Shircliff on his website. Ranging from 16-18oz, these handblown creations are pretty much just a DM away from being yours. If you go to the Primitive Glass website, you’ll see that the “Beer Glasses” are sold out, but Shircliff encourages you to see that any glass shown on his Instagram can be made again “just for you.”

Check out @primitiveglassware

Arc Aristocrat Cooler / Libby Heavy Base

Coming in at a cool 15oz (just a whisper shy of an American pint if that makes you feel better about drinking one less ounce of beer), the Arc Aristocrat Cooler has popped up in our Instagram feed several times. Similarly, the Libby Heavy Base has been a popular choice.

Simple yet sophisticated, this glass features a round shape, making it easy to hold.

But what we love best about both these glasses (and we imagine what brewery owners love, too) is its sturdy base. There is just something about a glass with a heft that makes you feel like a grown-up. But practically, it also makes the glass less prone to being knocked over, breaking, or spilling. Plus, since it’s super clear, you can easily see what you’re drinking.

Here are a few we love:

Buy Veil Cold Ones Glass: $8

Buy Half Acre Owl Glass: $8

Buy Tripping Animals Glass: $10

Buy Jackie O’s Barrel Character Glass: $8

Maxi Tumbler

We all know the tumbler-style glass has been popular for a few years, but the Maxi Tumbler is high-end glassmaking group, Bormioli Rocco’s spin. Part of the company’s Bodega collection, which focuses on “minimal design and clean lines,” according to the group’s website, the Maxi Tumbler follows the acronym KISS—keep it simple, stupid.

This glass’ simplicity makes it perfect for all beverages. Plus, it looks elegant and understated on your home bar or in your cabinet.

But just because it’s a simple design doesn’t mean breweries aren’t having fun with the designs they put on it. With such a large surface area, this glass makes for an excellent canvas for artist collabs and quirky graphics.

Here are a few we love:

Buy Highland Park Sad Cat Tumbler: $14

Join the Waitlist for the Fort Point Ten-Year Anniversary Glass

Buy FNBK Pint Glass: $12

Diner Mug

What is better after a night of heavy drinking than sitting down at a diner, ordering a piled-high plate of eggs or pancakes, and treating yourself to bottomless coffee? As you replay (or try to replay) all the funny moments from the night before, the caffeine-laden liquid in your heavy, often mismatched, ceramic mugs somehow magically never reaches the bottom.

While you can’t totally recreate getting all your friends together at Moe’s Tavern, JJ’s Diner, Double R Diner (deep cut?), or insert real-life college-town diner here, you can at least get yourself a diner mug that’ll make you smile through your hangover (even if as an adult that just means two beers the night before. Look, we get it!).

And breweries seemed to have copped on to that semi-millennial moment. But it’s not just Millennials! Yes, we hear your cry. Diners have been an iconic part of American culture since Rhode Island entrepreneur Water Scott started serving food, coffee, and pie out of a horse-pulled wagon. Let the debate rage between New Jersey and New York on who has the best diners in the country (and, of course, whatever state we missed that claims bottomless coffee fame). We’re not here to make that decision. We’re just here to show you some of the breweries making our favorite “Diner Mugs.”

Here are a few we love:

Buy Drowned Lands Diner Mug: $16

Buy Tree House Coffee Company Diner Mug: $12

Buy Night Shift Sunrise Coffee Mug: $28

Buy Killer Acid Sports Mug: $22.99

Rocks Glass

Who says you can only drink brandy or whiskey in rocks glasses? For beers that you need to sip, we’re finding these glasses work well, too.

The heavy, durable base grounds the beer (and you, too), while the stemless, retro design encourages you to take a second sip on that 14.5% ABV imperial, barrel-aged stout. From there, just enjoy life late into the night.

Perhaps no other brand this year has redefined the rocks glass more literally than North Drinkware. Following the tagline “Bring The Mountains Home™,” North Drinkware uses USGS 3D data to recreate famous mountain ranges in the bottom of your glass.

Rocks in rocks glasses…now that’s a concept we can get on top of. 🤷‍

You’ll find collections showing mountain ranges across the country, from the Mt. Rainier Tumbler to the Lake Tahoe Tumbler.

Unique, cool, and quirky, North Drinkware makes the perfect holiday gift.

Buy North Drinkware Rocks Glass: $56

Here are a few more we love:

Buy Burial Retro Logo Rocks Glass: $14

Buy Tripping Animals Old Fashioned Rocks Glass: $14

Buy Middle Coast Brewing Benevolent Spirits Rocks Glass: $10

Buy Pretentious Glass Co. Lowball Glass: $49

Pretentious Beer Glass Company

We’re going to pat ourselves on the back for this one because we found Pretentious Glass Co. all by ourselves. A glassware studio that focuses just on making glassware for craft beer, wine, cocktails, and whiskey, Pretentious Glass Co. started in 2012 when a small drinking club of artists in Louisville, KY, got together every Friday afternoon to drink some great beer.

You know how it is. You get to drinking, and suddenly, great ideas start pouring out faster than a draft system set at 15 psi (i.e. fast!).

With each glass made by hand, the works from Pretentious Glass Co. are genuinely unique and handcrafted.

This is a small-scale operation making incredibly beautiful glasses. If you can get your hands on some of these and help support them, that’s a win-win for everyone.

Here are some of the top-sellers we love:

Buy THE Beer Glass: $49

Buy Subtle: $59

Buy JuicyY: $59

Buy Foamy Boi: $69

Flask

Because who doesn’t like to pretend they’re Biff from Back to the Future sneaking a few sips at the “Enchantment Under the Sea” dance? Just like vinyl has come back around, we suppose flasks are back in fashion? We’ve never sipped from our hip, but with the number of breweries we’ve seen add flasks to their merch lineup, we imagine flasks are no longer a thing of the past.

Here are a few we love:

Buy Tree House Advantage Flash: $40

Buy Night Shift Leather-Wrapped Flask: $20

Buy Equilibrium Flask: $14

Steinkrug

If you read our guide to “Everything You Need to Know About Proper Lager Glassware,” you’d know that in German, stein means “stone” and krug translates to “mug.”

“I have an ongoing back-and-forth on steins because it’s an Americanized work of steinkrug and shortened,” says Notch Founder Chris Lohring. “When it’s shortened, it doesn’t mean what it’s supposed to mean!”

We don’t really just drink out of stones, do we!?

It’s an important distinction because these glasses aren’t made of…well, glass, but stoneware.

These are nice, sturdy vessels that protect beer from elements that could harm the beer inside, such as temperature and UV light. At Notch, steinkrugs come out only for events for those very reasons. “We have pretty big beer gardens at both locations, and they’re not all under trees, so the sun is a real factor,” says Lohring. “If your beer is in the sun for a long time, it will have a negative impact, so we allow people to have a steinkrug.”

Lohring says Notch uses one-liter steinkrugs for the brewery’s mug club and half-liter versions for festivals like their annual Starkbierfest (which includes bierstacheln!).

In Germany, you’ll most commonly find Keferloher, a liter or half-liter steinkrug from the Bavarian town of Keferloh. You might even find versions with a pewter lid called zinndeckel that look mighty fine on a shelf.

When Untappd released its own version of a steinkrug during Oktoberfest, the mug sold out within two days.

So, while that version isn’t currently available, and you need to join Notch’s mug club to get its steinkrug, here are a few you can buy right now.

Here are a few we love:

Buy Outer Range Fall Fun Stein: $20

Buy Phase 3 Ceramic Zwickel Tankard: $12

Buy Evil Twin Ceramic Limited-Edition Ceramic Fest Mug: $30

Buy Augustiner Beer Mugs: € 9,90 – € 40,90

Buy Schlenkerla Stein: € 11,90

Join Enegren’s Stein Club: $110-$135

Ludwig Tankard

A popular choice around Oktoberfest, this clear, straight-sided mug has a sturdy bottom and wide handle to help support all those toasts and prosts. The perfect vessel for all fall or Oktoberfest celebrations and even mug clubs, this tankard, according to Grandstand is perfect to “slam down on the table [while] singing as loud as you can!”

They’re practical, too! As we learned from Human Robot, who dropped one of these Ludwig Tankards in August, this straight-sided mug helps capture some of the lacing.

Here are a few we love:

Check out Human Robot Tankard

Buy Tripping Animals Oktoberfet 2024 Crocs Stein: $13

Buy Cloudwater Howarth Tankard With Gold Logo: £5.00

Buy Jackie O’s Barrel Glass Beer Mug: $15

Pilsnerish

This is less a style of glass and more a style of living. If you don’t know…now you know.

Pilsnerish describes itself as “a cool page about craft beer being dumb and super hard swag.”

Swag is absolutely the perfect word here. Collabing with some legendary players in the game, Pilsnerish always drops something coveted, which often sells out in mere hours or days.

Just stay on top of their drops. You won’t regret it. We recommend signing up for their newsletter so you never miss a beat.

Here were some of the bangers they released this year:

Root + Branch x Pilsnerish Gothic Skull Polygon

Brujos x Pilsnerish Hexágono

Horus Aged Ales x Pilsnerish – Gold Death Logo Pagoda Bottom Glass

Stemmed Edel

Ooh la la. Hot take: We might consider the stemmed Edel glass the new Teku. Super stylish and sleek, as perfect for wine as it is for delicate beer styles like farmhouse ales, saisons, wild ales, sours, and even barrel-aged stouts that require sipping, the stemmed Edel has become pretty popular at breweries across the U.S., the U.K., and beyond.

Gorgeous to look at and yet functional to drink with, the stemmed Edel truly represents glassware’s evolution. If you don’t have one, you’re not entirely on top of your 2024 glassware game.

We’ve found a few that truly impressed us.

Here are a few we love:

Buy Burial Floral Skull Wine Glass: $14

Buy The Craft Diaries Segmented Can Stemmed Edel Craft Beer Glass: £8.50 + shipping

Buy Track Welcome To The Neighbourhood 2024 Festival Glass: £5.00 + shipping

The Nigori Glass

At first glance, you might think this glass is over the top. But you’d be wrong.

Sure, it’s an eye-catching, scene-stealer with its bulbous bottom and beaker-like top. But it’s not all glitz and glam; it’s also form and function.

Designed by Geek Glass Tokyo as the perfect vessel for hazy IPAs, the Nigori Glass’s wide bowl aerates beer, releasing hop aromas that intensify as they travel up the narrow passage at the top.

Flavorwise, the rim that opens like a flower petal in bloom encourages the drinker to taste the beer on the tip of the tongue, accentuating the beer’s fruity notes, according to Geek Glass Tokyo.

Lastly, this beer just looks lit. To experience everything we love about uber murky, can’t-see-the-light-through-it hazy beer, the Nigori Glass puts that front and center.

Don’t knock it till you try it. Get one of these hand-blown glasses from Tokyo, pour your favorite hazy into its bowels, and let us know if you taste a difference!

Buy Geek Glass Tokyo The Nigori Glass: $59

Kölsch Glass

Technically called a stange, a kölsch glass has a tall, narrow body to present the clarity and light carbonation of this beer style. Much like a pilsner glass, a kölsch glass’ slim body also helps retain the style’s signature delicate head.

We’ve seen this glass gain popularity alongside the trend of kölsch service, a tradition in Köln we’ve seen grow in the U.S. where people walk around with trays full of fresh kölsch in stanges, replacing your glass as soon as it’s empty for as long as you’d like.

As more breweries develop their interpretations, they also find ways to sell their version of a kölsch glass, giving you more opportunities to add this to your #properglassware at home.

We enjoyed this version from Fort Point (pictured above) while sitting down to one of their weekly kölsch services held every Thursday in August. We love Fort Point’s iconic San Francisco branding in general, which often weaves in little nods to its hometown.

But this stange, in particular, blows us away with its subtle glam: gold rim and gold-outlined Grace Cathedral, a landmark building on top of Nob Hill.

Here are a few we love:

Buy Fort Point KSA All Day Glass: $10

Buy Human Robot Official Milktube Glass: $8

Buy Finback Crispy Kolsch Glass: $10

Buy Dancing Gnome Kolsch Stange Glass: $5

Perl Goblet

The length and towering height of the 13oz Perl Goblet make this glass one of those conversation pieces. The elongated, cylindrical shape makes this glass perfect for lagers like Czech-style pilsner, Italian pilsner, helles, or even lager/ale hybrids like kölsch.

Here are a few we love:

Buy Outer Range Mural Glass: $10

Buy Fort Point’s Sfizio Glass: $10

Buy Wooden Robot Annivesary Perl Goblet: $10

Buy Xul Ivy Perl Goblet Glass: $9

Buy West Sixth Hops Perl Goblet: $11

Willi Becher

A style that first became popular a couple of years ago, Willi Becher is still pretty hot amongst breweries. Originally designed by Willy Steinmeier, who worked for the German glass company Ruhr Glas in 1954, the Willi Becher gets its name from its roots. Becher literally translates to cup in German.

This style has stayed at the forefront because the versatility of the glass makes it perfect for various beer styles. The glass flares out two-thirds of the way up before curving back toward the top, promoting excellent head and aroma.

Use a Willi Becher for Czech-style pilsners, pilsners, Italian pilsners, helles, and pretty much any lager. But an IPA wouldn’t be off limits in this glass either.

Here are a few we love:

Buy Permanent Hangover Ur Not Gonna Remember Glass: $18

Buy Equilibrium Gold Enso Willi Becher Tumbler: $9

Buy Tripping Animals Retro Shroom Glass: $12

Buy Track Brewing Taproom Glass: £6.00

Buy Humble Sea Otter Space Willi Becher Glass: $10

Buy Brooklyn Brewery x Run The Jewels Glass: $10

Dimpled Czech Mug (Tübinger)

If we’ve seen one beer culture rightfully rise into the limelight in the past couple of years, it’s Czech beer. We’ve profiled everything from the proper way to pour Czech beer to what a day is like in the life of a Czech tapster to Czech dark lagers to Czech-style pilsners. We even had a chance to visit the Czech Republic earlier this year to experience everything in person!

Most Czech breweries serve beers in what’s called a Tübinger, a handled mug with dimples.

Originating in the 1800s in Germany, this type of glassware didn’t fit the beer styles found in Germany but became very common in the Czech Republic.

The style works very well for some Czech pours like the hladinka—a smooth pour with roughly one-third foam and two-thirds beer in the glass. If you’re interested, you can read more about this type of glass here.

Most well-known breweries in the Czech Republic have their own branded Tübinger. And now that many American breweries have adopted Czech-style beers and the proper way to serve them to boot, you can find versions from some of your favorite places.

Here are a few we love:

Buy Finback Crispy Tubinger Mug: $16

Buy Human Robot .5L Tubinger Mug: $10

Buy Alternate Ending Willy’s Gold Dimple Mug: $16

Buy Trillium Stacked Logo Tankard Mug: $10