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Tankard

 
Tankard

 
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Tankard
 
 
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A tankard is a form of drinkware
Drinkware

Drinkware, or beverageware, is a general term for Vessel....
 consisting of a large, roughly cylindrical
Cylinder (geometry)

A cylinder is one of the most curvilinear basic geometric shapes: the surface formed by the points at a fixed distance from a given straight line, the axis of the cylinder....
, drinking cup with a single handle. Tankards are usually made of silver
Silver

Silver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal....
, pewter
Pewter

Pewter is a malleable metal alloy, traditionally between 85 and 99 percent tin, with the remainder commonly consisting of copper, antimony and lead....
, or glass
Glass

Glass generally refers to a Hardness, brittle, transparency amorphous solid, such as that used for windows, many Glass Bottles, or eyewear, including, but not limited to, soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovite , or aluminium oxynitride....
, but can be made of other materials, for example clay
Clay

Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried and/or fired....
 or leather
Leather

Leather is a material created through the tanning of rawhides and skins of animals, primarily cattlehide. The tanning process converts the putrescible skin into a durable, long-lasting and versatile natural material for various uses....
. A tankard may have a hinged lid
LID

LID is an abbreviation for:* Light-Weight Identity, a system that allows individuals to claim and own their digital identity on the Internet* League for Industrial Democracy...
, and tankards featuring glass bottoms are also fairly common. Tankards are shaped and used similarly to beer stein
Beer stein

Beer stein or simply Stein is English for the Germans term "Steinkrug", a traditional beer mug similar to the lighter tankard....
s.
Glass bottoms
Tankards are often found with glass bottoms. The legend is that the glass bottomed tankard was developed as a way of refusing the King's shilling
King's shilling

The King's shilling - for many years a soldier's daily pay, before stoppages - was the shilling given to recruits of the British army and the Royal Navy of the 18th and 19th centuries....
, i.e.






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Encyclopedia


A tankard is a form of drinkware
Drinkware

Drinkware, or beverageware, is a general term for Vessel....
 consisting of a large, roughly cylindrical
Cylinder (geometry)

A cylinder is one of the most curvilinear basic geometric shapes: the surface formed by the points at a fixed distance from a given straight line, the axis of the cylinder....
, drinking cup with a single handle. Tankards are usually made of silver
Silver

Silver is a chemical element with the chemical symbol Ag and atomic number 47. A soft, white, lustrous transition metal, it has the highest electrical conductivity of any element and the highest thermal conductivity of any metal....
, pewter
Pewter

Pewter is a malleable metal alloy, traditionally between 85 and 99 percent tin, with the remainder commonly consisting of copper, antimony and lead....
, or glass
Glass

Glass generally refers to a Hardness, brittle, transparency amorphous solid, such as that used for windows, many Glass Bottles, or eyewear, including, but not limited to, soda-lime glass, borosilicate glass, acrylic glass, sugar glass, Muscovite , or aluminium oxynitride....
, but can be made of other materials, for example clay
Clay

Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried and/or fired....
 or leather
Leather

Leather is a material created through the tanning of rawhides and skins of animals, primarily cattlehide. The tanning process converts the putrescible skin into a durable, long-lasting and versatile natural material for various uses....
. A tankard may have a hinged lid
LID

LID is an abbreviation for:* Light-Weight Identity, a system that allows individuals to claim and own their digital identity on the Internet* League for Industrial Democracy...
, and tankards featuring glass bottoms are also fairly common. Tankards are shaped and used similarly to beer stein
Beer stein

Beer stein or simply Stein is English for the Germans term "Steinkrug", a traditional beer mug similar to the lighter tankard....
s.

Glass bottoms


Tankards are often found with glass bottoms. The legend is that the glass bottomed tankard was developed as a way of refusing the King's shilling
King's shilling

The King's shilling - for many years a soldier's daily pay, before stoppages - was the shilling given to recruits of the British army and the Royal Navy of the 18th and 19th centuries....
, i.e. conscription into the British army or navy. The drinker could see the coin in the bottom of the glass and refuse the drink, thereby avoiding conscription.

In actuality the glass bottom merely allowed the drinker to judge the clarity of their drink while forgoing the expense of a fragile pint glass.

Lead leaching from pewter

In previous centuries, the pewter used to make tankards often contained lead
Lead

Lead is a main-group Chemical element with symbol Pb and atomic number 82. Lead is a soft, malleable poor metal, also considered to be one of the heavy metal ....
, which exposed the drinker to medical effects ranging from heavy metal poisoning to gout
Gout

Gout is a crystal deposition disease hallmarked by elevated levels of uric acid in the Circulatory system. In this condition, crystals of monosodium urate or uric acid are deposited on the articular cartilage of joints, tendons and surrounding tissues....
. This effect was exacerbated in cider
Cider

Cider is an alcoholic beverage usually made from the fermentation juice of apples, although pears are also used.While any variety of apple may be used, certain cultivars are preferred in some regions, and these may be known as cider apples....
 drinking areas such as Somerset, UK, as the acid qualities of the cider leached out the lead content from the pewter more quickly. Clay
Clay

Clay is a naturally occurring material composed primarily of fine-grained minerals, which show plasticity through a variable range of water content, and which can be hardened when dried and/or fired....
 tankards became prevalent in this area. Pewter is now widely lead-free.

See also

  • Beer stein
    Beer stein

    Beer stein or simply Stein is English for the Germans term "Steinkrug", a traditional beer mug similar to the lighter tankard....
  • Maß
    Maß

    The is a term used in German-speaking countries for a unit of volume, now typically used for measuring beer. In modern times, a is defined as exactly 1 litre....


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