What Are the Best Insulated Pint Glasses?
Just because backyard barbecue season is here doesn’t mean it’s time to break out the Solo cups. It’s time to upgrade.
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Those red Solo cups left over from your dorm-room days? They’re wasteful and will leave your beer undrinkably lukewarm. Opt instead for one of the many new insulated pint glasses on the market. Here are our four favorites, ranked.
The Test
To determine how well the glasses thermoregulate, I poured 12 ounces of a 48-degree Caldera into each pint and measured temperature change every ten minutes for an hour in my 70-degree office. I held the glass for one minute out of every ten to more closely mimic a party environment.
Note: Some of these companies claim their glasses will keep the drink cold for more than four hours. But here’s the thing: If it takes you up to fours hours to drink a beer, you’re doing something wrong.
4. Klean Kanteen Vacuum Insulated Tumbler
Weight: 10.3 ounces
Capacity: 16 ounces
Material: Stainless steel
Lid: $7, sold separately
One-Hour Temperature Gain: Three degrees
The Verdict: You can buy the tumbler with a variety of different lids (all sold separately), making this the most versatile pint on this list for beverages other than beer. We especially like the coffee- and cocktail-specific lids.
We also like the pint’s electro-polished interior, which Klean Kanteen ($24) claims prevents one drink from imparting its flavor to another. While I never made the infamous gin-to-coffee transition using the same cup, I can certainly say that the beer taste never stuck when I switched to water.
3. Avex Brew
Weight: 8.6 ounces
Capacity: 20 ounces
Material: Stainless steel
Lid: None
One-Hour Temperature Gain: Four degrees
The Verdict: The Avex Brew ($25), available June 15, has the most innovative add-ons of any of the pints we tested. Designers integrated a bottle opener, gripping band, and rubberized sit pad into the pint in subtle way that doesn’t make the stainless-steel vessel look gimmicky. The removable grip band has a notch that fit my thumb well, making this 20-ounce cup easier to hold for extended periods. The sit pad gave this pint a nice hold on sketchy surfaces like the hood of a car.
2. Stanley Vacuum Pint
Weight: 13.1 ounces
Capacity: 16 ounces
Material: Stainless steel
Lid: Heavy duty, with integrated removable bottle opener
One-Hour Temperature Gain: Three degrees
The Verdict: The Vacuum Pint ($23) is a beast, which is exactly why we chose it for the final four. It’s heavy and has a wide circumference; some testers with small hands complained that it was too big. For reference, I wear a medium/large glove, and this glass was on the large side of what feels comfortable.
That leads to great insulation—it tied with the Klean Kanteen for first place—and a very cool-looking burly cup with a hammered-metal exterior. The Vacuum Pint’s lid has a deep mouthpiece, which allowed me to take big quaffs of beer without my nose hitting the lid.
1. Hydroflask True Pint
Weight: 7.3 ounces
Capacity: 16 ounces
Material: Stainless steel
Lid: None
One-Hour Temperature Gain: Four degrees
The Verdict: I love the True Pint’s ($22) simple design. It’s the smallest, thinnest, lightest, and lowest-profile pint on this list, making it the easiest to hold. Its powder-coated exterior gives it a nice textured grip that added to its excellent hand feel. The exterior lip is slightly beveled, a feature borrowed from old-school German pints.
All that said, this and the Avex kept the beer the least cold of any other glass I tested. But a 52-degree beer after an hour is still plenty drinkable.