Anyone who's stood at a taproom bar squinting at a chalkboard of eight unfamiliar beers has probably been handed a flight without quite knowing what to call it. A flight sounds like tasting-room jargon, but it's a genuinely useful idea once you understand what it's for: a small, structured selection of beers, served in reduced measures, designed to let you compare styles side by side rather than commit a full pint to something you might not like. We build a version of this into every stop on our guided tours, so here's what a flight actually is, how the sizing and order work, and how to run a good one yourself - whether that's at a bar or your own kitchen table.
What a beer flight actually is
A beer flight is usually four to six different beers, each poured in a small measure - often a third of a pint or less - and served together on a paddle or in a row of matching glasses. The idea is borrowed directly from wine tasting flights: rather than picking one drink and sticking with it, you get to taste a spread of styles in one sitting, compare them directly against each other, and work out what you actually like before committing to a full pour of anything. Most taprooms build flights around beers they've brewed themselves, so a flight often doubles as the fastest way to understand a brewery's whole range in about twenty minutes.
The term itself isn't fussy or exclusive - "flight" just describes the format, not a specific set of beers. A flight can be curated by the venue (a fixed set of four covering their core range), or built by you from whatever's on tap, picking your own four or six from a longer list. Both are common, and neither is more "correct" than the other.
How much beer is actually in a flight, and what it's served in
Sizes vary more than people expect. Some venues pour a strict third of a pint per glass; others go smaller, at quarter-pint or 100ml measures, especially for a flight of six or more beers or anything high in alcohol. Add it up and a typical flight comes to somewhere between a pint and a half and two pints of beer in total, spread across small glasses rather than one big one - which matters if you're pacing yourself across an afternoon rather than treating it as a single round. It's always worth asking a member of staff what each glass actually holds before you order, because "flight" isn't a standardised measure the way a pint or half is, and a flight of six generous thirds adds up faster than it looks on the paddle.
The paddle itself - a wooden or slate board with cut-outs for each glass - is mostly presentation rather than anything functional, though it does make it easy to keep track of which beer is which without them getting mixed up on a crowded bar.
Tasting order: why light-to-dark and low-to-high hop matters
The one rule worth actually following is tasting order. Go from lightest to darkest and from least to most bitter or boozy - start with a crisp lager or pilsner, move through pale ales into IPAs, and finish on stouts, porters or anything with a high ABV or heavy roast character. Our guide to what IPA actually means covers the hop-forward end of that spectrum in more detail if you're building a flight around hoppier styles specifically. The reason for the order is straightforward palate mechanics: a big, bitter or heavily roasted beer will dull your ability to pick out the subtler flavours in anything lighter that follows it, so tasting light first and heavy last protects your palate rather than blowing it out three beers in. Getting the order backwards doesn't ruin a flight, but it does mean the first beer you loved might taste flat and characterless by the time you circle back to compare it with the last.
Reading a flight properly, not just drinking it
A flight is wasted if you just work through the glasses in order without actually comparing them. Look at each beer before you taste it - colour and clarity tell you a lot before it's even in your mouth. Give it a proper smell first, since most of what we call "taste" is actually aroma. Then taste in small sips rather than gulps, and take a moment between each glass; a plain water or a piece of bread between beers resets your palate far better than moving straight from one to the next. It's also worth tasting the same beer again after trying the next one along - flavours you missed the first time often show up more clearly once you've got something to compare them against. This is exactly the habit we build into our tours: rather than just handing over a beer at each taproom, our guides talk through what to notice before you taste, so a flight becomes something you're actively comparing rather than just working through.
Flight vs a guided tasting tour
A bar flight and a guided tasting share the same basic structure - several beers, small measures, meant to be compared - but a flight on its own leaves you to work out the differences yourself, usually from a one-line description on a chalkboard. A guided tasting adds the bit a flight normally skips: someone explaining why each beer was chosen, what's different about how it was brewed, and what to actually notice as you taste it. Our Bermondsey Beer Tasting Tour (£49pp, 2-3.5 hours, beer included) works like a flight spread across four independent taprooms rather than one bar, with a guide walking you through each pour at Southwark Brewing Co (46 Druid St) and three more stops along the way. If you'd rather pair the tasting with food, our Cheese, Meat & Beer Tour (£65pp, Saturdays, 12pm-2:30pm) runs the same idea alongside proper cheese and cured meat at each stop. Both work for private groups from six people up to 60 or more via private and group tours, and we've been running them since 2014.
Building your own flight at home
You don't need taproom equipment to run a decent flight yourself. Pick four to six beers spanning genuinely different styles rather than four variations on the same IPA, pour small measures into separate glasses (a third of a pint is plenty), and taste in the same light-to-dark order described above. Our guide to hosting a beer tasting at home covers glassware, a simple scoresheet, and how to structure the evening if you want to do this properly for a group rather than just lining up a few bottles on the counter. It's also worth reading our piece on what a taproom actually is first if you're new to this - understanding how taprooms build their own range makes it much easier to pick a sensible, varied flight rather than four beers that all taste roughly the same.
Our honest take
A beer flight is a genuinely good way to taste widely without committing to full pints of things you're not sure about, and the format works just as well built at home as it does ordered at a bar. The only real skill is tasting order - light to dark, low to high hop and ABV - and actually pausing to compare glasses rather than just working through them. If you'd rather have someone else pick the beers and explain what you're tasting as you go, that's exactly what our guided tours do, moving the flight idea across four real taprooms instead of one bar. A gift voucher for either tour, bought directly on our gift vouchers page, delivered by email instantly and never expiring, is a solid present for anyone who'd rather taste a proper flight than be handed another single pint.