ABV, IBU, Style and Pour Size on a Draft Menu

A draft menu reads the same on every line when the style comes from a house glossary, ABV carries 1 decimal (5.0%, not 5%), IBU appears on every line or on none, and every price sits beside its ounces. Below are the rules for each field, how to fit 3 or 4 pour sizes on one line, how to flag strong beers that pour small, and a 6 line board before and after.

How should the style be written on a draft menu?

Write every style from a house glossary: 1 page listing each style you pour, spelled one way, with the variants nobody may use. Style drifts first because people type it from memory, so the same hazy IPA turns up as NEIPA, Juicy IPA and New England IPA, and guests read that as 3 different beers.

Build the glossary with these rules:

• Pick 1 name per style: Hazy IPA or New England IPA, never both.
• Spell out bartender shorthand. IPA stays because every guest knows it; DIPA, BA, RIS and NEIPA get written out.
• Put modifiers in a fixed order (process, strength, base style): "Barrel-Aged Imperial Stout," never "BA Stout."
• Add fruit or a big adjunct in parentheses only when it changes what the guest expects, as in "Fruited Sour (Raspberry)." The rest goes in the description.
• If the brewery invents its own style name, the style field still says the glossary style, and the fun name goes in the beer name.
• Put your longest glossary name up at normal type size. If it wraps, shorten it.

A starter glossary:

Tape a copy where the board gets edited and keep one with the shift handoff card. When a beer arrives in a style the glossary doesn't cover, whoever edits the board adds the entry first, then puts the beer up.

How many decimals should ABV show on a beer menu?

Show ABV to 1 decimal place on every line, with a % sign: 5.0%, never 5% or 4.85%. The federal label rule works the same way. 27 CFR 7.65, published by Cornell's Legal Information Institute, says a malt beverage at 0.5% or more that states its alcohol content gives it to the nearest tenth of a point, with a tolerance of 0.3 points either way. A beer labeled 6.9% can test anywhere from 6.6% to 7.2%, so a second decimal on your board claims precision the label never had.

One decimal also lines up the ABV column, so a guest looking for something light reads straight down it. It ends rounding arguments too: 6.96 becomes 7.0 and 6.94 becomes 6.9, and nobody on staff has to decide.

Take the ABV from the brewery's label, keg collar or sell sheet for the batch you're pouring. The same rule says alcohol content "may be stated" on a malt beverage label, so a keg can arrive without it. When one does, ask the brewery rather than guess.

Beers under 0.5% are the exception. The rule lets their labels show a hundredth of a point, and rounding 0.05% to 1 decimal prints 0.1% or 0.0%, neither of which the label says. Copy those exactly; the guide to 0.0% versus 0.5% on a menu covers the wording. Before you lock any format, ask your state alcohol regulator whether it has rules for how menus show alcohol content or pour sizes.

Should a beer menu list IBU?

List IBU only if it passes 3 tests, and then list it on every line. IBU (International Bitterness Units) measures a specific hop compound, and the Brewers Association's 2026 Beer Style Guidelines say the number "will not consistently coincide with an individual's perception of bitterness intensity." Their own style entries show the gap:

At the same 45 IBU, the guidelines describe a hazy IPA's bitterness as low to medium and a pale ale's as medium to medium-high. The hazy entry adds that its bitterness "may differ significantly from measured or calculated IBU levels." A guest who reads 45 on both lines expects the same bite.

The 3 tests:

1. You can get a real number from the brewery for every beer on the board, every time.
2. Guests ask about bitterness often enough that the number saves your bartender a conversation.
3. The board has room for another column without shrinking the rest.

If any test fails, skip IBU. A half-filled column reads like missing data, so it's every line or none. To settle test 2, have bartenders tick a sheet by the register for a week each time a guest asks how bitter a beer is. If you skip IBU and guests still ask, put 1 or 2 flavor words in the description, such as "bitter, piney" or "soft, low bitterness."

How should pour size be written on a draft menu?

Write the pour in ounces next to every price: "16 oz $7," not "Pint $7" or a bare "$7." The word "pint" doesn't tell a guest what your glass holds.

Decide whether the number is the glass or the beer in it, and use that on every line. The Brewers Association's Draught Beer Quality Manual (page 56) calls for about a 1 inch collar of foam and calls filling a glass to the rim overpouring, so a properly poured 16 oz glass holds less than 16 oz of beer. Make sure staff can explain whichever number you show.

List multiple sizes in the same order on every line, largest first: "16 oz $7 / 10 oz $5." When tap 3 lists the small pour first and tap 4 the large one, guests misread prices. The guide to draft beer cost per ounce turns the keg invoice into each of those prices.

How do you fit 3 or 4 pour sizes on one tap line?

A pour earns a spot on the line only if guests order it to drink here and at least half the lines in the section pour it. Everything else moves to its own block. This line carries every price the bar has for one beer:

1 | Helles Lager | 4.9% | 16 oz $7 / 10 oz $5 / 5 oz $3 / 32 oz crowler $14

A guest who wants the taster reads past 2 prices to find it. Sorted against one guest ordering at the rail:

• The 16 oz, the 10 oz and, if you sell single tasters, the 5 oz stay.
• Growler and crowler fills move to a to-go block, priced as in the guide to growler and crowler fill prices.
• Flights sell as a set, so they get their own block; see how to price a beer flight.
• Pitchers go up once, where tables order.

Inline or columns?

Use columns when every line in a section pours the same sizes, or misses 1 at most, and inline when they don't. Columns put the sizes in the section header, so prices scan straight down, but every pour a beer doesn't sell leaves a hole. Inline keeps each size attached to its price, so every line reads on its own.

Here is a hoppy section that has outgrown its columns:

That's 3 holes, 2 on tap 7. If someone slides tap 7's $8 one column left while editing, it reads as an $8 pint of a 9.2% beer. Inline, with the sizes moved into a pour key, the section reads:

HOPPY   Sizes: 16 oz, 10 oz, 5 oz taster. Not every beer pours every size.
4 | Pale Ale       | 5.6% | 16 oz $7 / 10 oz $5
5 | Hazy IPA       | 6.5% | 16 oz $8 / 10 oz $6 / 5 oz $3
6 | West Coast IPA | 6.8% | 16 oz $8 / 10 oz $6 / 5 oz $3
7 | Double IPA     | 9.2% | 10 oz only $8

The key never names more than 4 sizes, because no line carries more than 4.

How many prices fit on your line?

Your own board sets the number. Write out its longest line with every pour you plan to show and put it up at the size the across-the-room type test gives you. If it wraps, cuts the style short or pushes the ABV out of its column, drop the last pour.

Then run the rail test. Stand someone who hasn't seen the layout where guests order, point at 3 prices in each section, including the line with the fewest pours, and ask what size each one buys. One wrong answer sends that section to inline or a pour key.

How should a menu flag strong beers that pour small?

Set a house ABV line and list only the small pour for any beer at or above it, in words: "10 oz only" or "8 oz snifter." The line is your call; the examples here use 9.0%.

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism defines a US standard drink as about 0.6 fl oz of pure alcohol, the amount in a 12 oz can of 5% beer. Multiply the pour by the ABV for ounces of alcohol, then divide by 0.6:

A 10 oz pour of the 9.2% beer already holds more alcohol than a 5.0% pint. The pour that matches that pint is 0.80 divided by the ABV: 8.7 oz at 9.2% and 6.5 oz at 12.4%. These figures use the full listed size, so with a foam collar the glass holds a little less.

On the board, list only the sizes you'll pour; never show 16 oz and then refuse it. Keep the ABV visible on those lines, because the high number explains the small glass, and use a word as well as any color, since a color code needs a key. Back it with a staff rule: nobody upsizes a beer over the house line because a guest asks nicely. For the other end of the scale, see listing and pricing low-ABV beer.

What does a draft menu look like before and after these rules?

Here are 6 lines from an example board after a few weeks of different people editing it, with brewery and beer names left out to keep them short:

1  | Helles                           | 4.9     | Pint $7 / small $5
5  | NEIPA                            | 6.5%    | 16oz $8 / 10oz $6
6  | WCIPA                            | 6.8 ABV | pint 8 / half 6
7  | DIPA                             | 9.2%    | 16 oz $9
9  | Fruited kettle sour w/ raspberry | 5.5%    | 10 oz $6 / 16 oz $9
14 | BA Imp Stout                     | 12.4%   | $9

The same lines after the rules:

Shorthand became glossary styles, "small" and "half" became ounces, and the ABV column lines up. Tap 7 crossed the 9.0% house line, so its 16 oz pour came off and its 10 oz pour went up at the price the cost sheet gives it. There's no IBU column because this example bar pours guest beers without reliable numbers.

What does TapDisplay show on each tap line?

On the TapDisplay board, each tap shows its name, brewery, style, 2 stats and a price per pour, with 2 pours by default and up to 4. The stat labels come from the business type (ABV and IBU on a brewery menu), and you can change them. A third or fourth pour appears only after you raise the pours setting. A long list adjusts its type to fit, then turns pages, so rerun the rail test on the screen after any change to the pours.

Start typing a beer and pick a catalog match, and it fills in the brewery, style and ABV you haven't entered yet; check that style against your glossary before you save. The activity log shows who changed what, with undo, so when NEIPA reappears on tap 5 you know whose habit to fix. Every connected screen checks for changes every 30 seconds.

What should a 5 minute field audit check?

Run these checks before the next shift, and again whenever someone new starts editing the board:

• Every style matches a glossary entry, spelled the same way, with no abbreviation but IPA.
• Every ABV came from the brewery and has 1 decimal and a % sign, except beers under 0.5%, which copy the label.
• IBU is on every line or on none.
• Every price has its ounces beside it, largest pour first.
• No pour sits on the line unless at least half the section pours it.
• Every beer at or over your house ABV line lists only its small pour, in words.

The bottom line

A draft menu reads fast when every field follows 1 house format: glossary styles, ABV to 1 decimal, IBU on every line or none, and ounces beside every price. Past 2 pours, let each section decide between inline prices and columns, and prove the layout with the rail test. Beers over your house ABV line list only their small pour, so the board backs up the bartender who won't upsize them.