Beer – there’s nothing too fancy about it.
It generally doesn’t get endorsements from highfalutin celebrities, and it isn’t packaged and branded in a posh Eastern fashion like French wine or Russian vodka might be. Beer is beer, and there’s nothing really pretentious about it.
That is, unless you take into consideration the glasses from which you drink the beverage.
The Pretentious Beer Glass Company is changing the game when it comes to glassware, hand making unique drinking glasses on Central Avenue right in the heart of the Old City.
It all started several years ago when owner and artist, Matthew Cummings, gathered with his friends near the Mellwood Arts and Entertainment Center in Louisville, Kentucky. The group would get together after work on Fridays for a bottle share club where they would try rare, limited release beers.
“One day after having a few too many to drink, because that’s where all good ideas come from, my friend said, ‘Hey! Man, you’re a glass blower. You should make us some beer glasses to drink out of,’” Cummings recounted.
Cummings, who studied fine art in school and ultimately obtained a M.F.A. from Illinois State University, was up for the challenge. It was during his studies that he was faced with the choice of either taking ceramics or glass as a general education requirement.
He picked the alternative to ceramics and consequently fell in love with glass blowing. So naturally, he rose to the occasion and set out to make glassware for the bottle share club.
“The next bottle share, I brought them to everybody and it was the coolest thing,” Cummings said. “Grown men were giggling. They were like, ‘this is pretentious as s–t!’ And that just kind of stuck … so when I decided to start making this stuff and putting it out there, Pretentious Beer Glass Company was just kind of obvious.”
But it’s not so much about being pretentious as it is about actually enhancing the experience. Believe it or not, Cummings explained that every glass either enhances or dulls particular elements of each beer.
“I got as many glasses as I could, and I drank the right beers out of them,” Cummings said. “Then, I drank the wrong beers out of them to figure out what actually enhanced the beer and what was just tradition.”
He went on to explain that it’s very common for a European brewery to have a proprietary glass. In fact, in Belgium they won’t even serve you if they don’t have the proper glass for your choice beverage — you actually have to wait for the correct glass to be cleaned.
With 10 total taps, eight of their own beers and two non-alcoholic options like root beer or orange soda, the options at Pretentious Beer Glass Company will always be in flux — offering seasonally appropriate, unique options (like Raspberry Hibiscus Blonde). And Cummings assures there will always be an appropriate beer for each glass (i.e. this isn’t Belgium).
“What you want to do is match up what the glass enhances with the style (of beer) that needs that flavor proponent enhanced,” Cummings said.
Pretentious Beer Glass Company customers can rest assured that their beer and beer glasses will come together in a complimentary way. And while a number of new breweries have recently opened or are set to open soon, Pretentious Beer Glass Company is the only one that will have a glass blowing studio as part of the bar. This unique feature is something Shaun Parrish at Old City Java is particularly excited about.
“We’re stoked to have the Matthew Cummings gallery and Pretentious Beer Glass Company on the block,” Parrish said. “It’s great to have both retail and gallery studio space. I think it lends itself well to the creative nature of the Old City.”
The studio space is open Monday through Saturday from 8AM until 1PM, and Cummings invites everyone to drop in and check out the work. The beer garden and taproom are still in the works, but Cummings hopes to open that portion of the business in the not so distant future.
“The core philosophy in craft beer is about the adventure,” Cummings said. “Don’t restrict yourself to exploring different beers and not exploring different beer glasses, because that’s a pretty critical part of the experience of beer.”
