IT is great that MPs are waking up to the fact that British beer drinkers are being short-changed ("A pint of milk is a pint, so why isn't a pint of beer a pint?" April 5).

When is a pint not a pint?

When bar staff knowingly give large heads on beer, and refuse to top it up.

I am pleased York's pubs and bars are considered better than other places in the country. But I have to say that on a number of occasions I have had to argue with the bar staff, because they claimed "it is the traditional head".

I always thought Yorkshiremen and women were "canny".

When I became president of a students' union in York and suggested to the bar manager he put up a sign behind the bar offering a top up if wanted, he said the extra beer left in the barrels went to the union's profits, so he would leave it alone.

I am also aware that lined beer glasses were introduced in a well known pub, run by a big, bald-headed man. But they were taken out because the profit margin went down when some customers demanded the glasses were topped up with ale.

The sooner lined glasses become the standard, the better. Unfortunately real beer is not something that is served here in Goa, more's the pity. With temperatures in the mid-30s, I could kill for a pint of good Yorkshire ale.

Gordon Campbell-Thomas,

Mapusa, Bardez, Goa, India.

Updated: 08:59 Friday, April 08, 2005