THE sophisticated female drinker of the future will wean herself off single glasses of Chardonnay in favour of a swift “third” of beer, served in an elegant fluted glass.

This, at least, is the desperate hope of the British Beer & Pub Association which is tackling an 18 per cent decline in demand for beer with a £1 million drive to persuade women that beer is no longer a drink to be associated with smoky pubs, rolling sports coverage, flat caps or whippets.

As its centrepiece, the Beautiful Beer campaign will unveil special long-stemmed glasses from which women will be able to sip delicately their 18.5 centilitre “thirds”, “without spilling it all over their shoes”, a spokesman said.

Traditional pint glasses, he claimed controversially, are shunned by many women who feel that they are ugly and impractical.

The campaign will seek further to invigorate the image of ale and lager by training top sommeliers in beer tasting and by offering “beer lists” alongside conventional wine lists in restaurants.

Strategists involved in the campaign have also set themselves the arguably impossible task of convincing women that lager is not fattening. Recent figures have shown that 36 per cent of women in pubs drink wine but only 14 per cent drink lager.

Although the 18.5 centilitre measure has been in existence since Victorian times when it was used to serve very strong beer such as porters, the “third” has now been largely forgotten.

The measure is to be made available again in its tulip-shaped reincarnation later this year after it is first piloted at selected pubs and bars around the country.

“The pint glass is not a very attractive glass shape and we want to create something from which you get more of a bouquet,” Mark Hastings, of the British Beer & Pub Association, said yesterday.

“By the time you are back from the bar you have spilt half of what you have bought all over your feet. Beer sales have declined in Britain by 18 per cent in ten years, people are drinking more wine and more spirits.

“It is particularly important that women change their perception of beer.”

Asked what was wrong with half-pint measures, he said: “Nobody wants a half of anything.”

Mr Hastings also claimed that beer producers were fighting an inaccurate prejudice among women that beer is more fattening and contains more alcohol than wine.

“There are actually more calories in a glass of wine compared with a glass of beer,” he said. He also condemned beer and wine drinkers for not more frequently opting to drink beer with their meals, a trend he hopes to reverse.

“One of the great things about beer is its variety. There are all sorts of styles for connoisseurs. The complexity of traditional English ales, for example, goes well with steak.

“With wine you just have red and white. With beer you have a whole host of colours: black, gold, yellow, to name a few.”

But plans to lure more women away from wine received a mixed reception in the pubs, restaurants and wine bars of the City yesterday. Beer drinkers claimed that a “female-friendly” glass was patronising, while wine drinkers said they preferred the taste of wine.

Sara Peterson, the manager of the City wine bar Balls Brothers, said that beer had negative associations with loutish and teenage behaviour. “Beer has had a bad press and is linked in some people’s minds to a yobbish culture.

“A lot of women see it as something that fills you up too much and takes over the food and I don’t think a new glass will make that much difference. Leffe’s had their own stemmed glass for years.

Wendy Seakems, an insurance broker, said yesterday that she thought it unlikely that a new glass shape would encourage her to forfeit a glass of Sauvignon for Stella. “I don’t like beer because it’s gassy and it fills you up,” she said. “Maybe they should just change the taste.”

Explore UK News

• Crime News

• Education News

• Health News

• Science News

• Scotland News

Times Recommends

• Everyone will get vaccine against swine flu
• Artificial sperm and the race to build a baby
• BBC jets out stars to tout for prizes