The Supremacy of the 20 cl Beer

A superior beer drinking format: politically, culturally, aesthetically.

Mar 17, 2026

If you live in a materially rich, spiritually impoverished country, you’ve likely sought out places during your travels that feature the 20 centilitre (200 mL) beer as a standard menu item. Perhaps you ordered a glass and found it to be charming, full of whimsy, joy, and other qualities lacking in your existence back home. Perhaps you returned to a dark, overpriced bar in Chicago, or Vancouver, where you huddled with your cohort in an impenetrable circle, 20 oz. pints in-hand, and got needlessly drunk while conversing in detached streams of condescension and satire. If this resonates even remotely, I advise you to welcome the 20 cl beer into your miserable life. It is a superior format not only for practical beer-drinking reasons, but also as a political, cultural, and aesthetic statement.

In this drinking format, the beer source (keg/can/bottle) is kept refrigerated and removed from the immediate reach of the drinker with his 20 cl glass. He gets the satisfaction of imbibing more (emptying, refilling), but consumes less thanks to the frequent need to return to the well, and the interruptions this entails. The result is a perpetual state of getting drunk (joy, hope, whimsy) rather than being drunk (yuck, dumb, abyss). If drunkness is pursued to alleviate boredom, existential angst, and to put off thinking about, and addressing, other issues, drinking is pursued to linger for longer than you normally would in public places, surrounded by strangers who wish to do the same. The 20 cl beer serves the latter purpose with style, grace, and less impact to your health and wealth. Fascism stands little chance against an entire civilization sitting around in bars, parks, backyards, and living rooms, sipping from cunty little glasses with their pinky fingers stuck out, not getting zombie-mode drunk but slightly tickled while exchanging ideas on what it means to be decent and kind in 2026.

Perhaps you think of yourself as having some refinement in your beer taste. You don’t. There is no such thing as having complex or interesting preferences about beer. The only thing you taste, when you taste 95% of beer, is temperature. The spectrum of quality is the spectrum between 23°C (undrinkable) and 1°C (outstanding). This overrides all other adjectives you’ve latched on to by a factor of one-thousand. A perfectly hazy IPA and a perfectly nothing-burger Coors Light are equally undrinkable at 23°C and equally outstanding at 1°C. The practical advantage of the 20 cl beer comes from its maintaining a perfect temperature profile from full to empty, even for slow drinkers. (I have tested this over many sipping speeds, in climates ranging from the mild dry season in the Serengeti to the sweltering tropics of Montelíbano.)

Especially for younger nations cursed with the colonial gene, whose early years were spent being ping-ponged around a dysfunctional foster care system, we must be scathing in the curation of our inherited habits. Sometime around adolescence, in nation-state-years, we are liable to go haywire. Abandon all lessons from our elders as we embark on (or pretend to be innocent bystanders of) blatant empire-expansion projects that often linger into our twenties and thirties. We should consider alternate paths while our personalities are still pliable. For most of human history, alcohol has served as a worthy companion during periods of soul-searching. Used correctly, I believe it can alter the trajectory of a nation, even a species. I propose that the uncouth, deeply embarrassing 60 oz. pitcher of lukewarm piss beer—rivalling Euclidian zoning for the most distasteful idea we’ve adopted from the US—can be permanently barred from Canada, where I write from, and from all other interested nations (including the US), in place of a 20 cl glass of frosty Mexican lager or crisp German Kölsch. This also extends to the 20 oz. pint, which has a handful of worthwhile applications (e.g. Guinness) but is otherwise inferior to the 20 cl format for reasons already stated. It’s not too late to wean ourselves off from these corrupting influences and link arms as we brainstorm a kinder future (over 20 cl beers).

The next time you wish to drink beer, I urgently advise that you first acquire a 20 cl glass. Notice that the mom and pop shops who sell them embody the infectious, whimsical spirit of the vessel. Buy a few cans or bottles and keep them at a distance, refrigerated. Sit in your living room or on the bar stool and sip from your 20 cl with your pinky finger lifted. Let your mind drift, calmly, to your global compatriots who are engaged in the same activity, and those who have been prevented from doing so by imperialist and authoritarian impulses. Buy a stranger a 20 cl, because they only cost a few bucks. Clink your glasses and ask where they came from, where they hope to be. Refill as needed. One beer will feel like three, and all three will remain cold and crispy from top to bottom.

The hungry fools
Who rule the world can’t catch us
Surely they can’t ruin everything
I just want
I wanna be here with you
Not bracing
For what comes next

— I Want To Be Here by case/lang/veirs