# Jug vs pitcher



## SandroIlSardo

Hi guys,
Can anyone tell me which is the difference between a "Jug" and a "Pitcher" as I believed these two words were synonyms...

This question came up to my mind while reading this article (see below) on the website fancyapint


"Another thing to remember is that you won’t get a “pitcher” of beer in most pubs in the UK, but you may be able to purchase a “jug”. Chances are, the bar staff won’t know what you’re talking about if you ask for a pitcher, either."

Thank you
Alessandro


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## GreenWhiteBlue

To my mind, a pitcher has a wider opening, while a jug could be stopped with a cork or other stopper. I also think of a jug as being made of crockery.

A jug:
http://www.hudson.lib.oh.us/Hudson%20Website/Archives/Archives/Galleries/Stoneware%20Gallery/Babcock%20Brown%20Jug/mdBabcock%20brown%20Jug.JPG

A pticher:
http://culvercity.classicpartyrentals.com/product_image/image/688/silver-water-pitcher-L.jpg


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## Gordonedi

You are correct, Alessandro.  The two words are almost synonymous, but there is a slight difference in this context.

It is still possible to purchase beer in metal pitchers in many parts of the United Kingdom, more usually in pubs which are either long established or deliberately (and proudly) traditional.  Modern pubs tend to offer larger quantities of beer in glass jugs, which are to my mind far too clinical for this purpose.  Pitchers were originally made out of leather - so they go back a long way.

Ciao !


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## SandroIlSardo

Thanks to both of you boys. 
Anyway, I lived in London for a while (I know...London is not England  ) and I've never seen beer served in metal pitchers.
Also, I always call a large jug made of glass a pitcher. Am I wrong? I'm confused...Why pub staff would understand "a jug of beer" and not "a pitcher of beer"...is there any point I am missing? Maybe because english isn't my first language and these slight differences don't sound that slight to me!


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## kgleoite

SandroIlSardo said:


> Thanks to both of you boys.
> Anyway, I lived in London for a while (I know...London is not England  ) and I've never seen beer served in metal pitchers.
> Also, I always call a large jug made of glass a pitcher. Am I wrong? I'm confused...Why pub staff would understand "a jug of beer" and not "a pitcher of beer"...is there any point I am missing? Maybe because english isn't my first language and these slight differences don't sound that slight to me!


 

Well I can only talk about Ireland. In an Irish pub you can't buy a jug or a pitcher of any kind of drink, as far as I know. You can buy a pitcher of beer in American themed restaurants. 
Both words mean the same thing, though. Maybe the person who wrote on 'fancyapint' was being sarcastic, by implying that 'pitcher' was more an American word than a British word (only guessing here!), so bar staff in Britain wouldn't understand what a 'pitcher' was. Which I really doubt.
I wouldn't worry too much about whether you use 'jug' or 'pitcher', both are fine.

I hope this makes sense.


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## SandroIlSardo

Thank you now it makes sense to me!


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## EdisonBhola

I've been taught that jug is BE and pitcher is AE.


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## Florentia52

EdisonBhola said:


> I've been taught that jug is BE and pitcher is AE.


Please see #2.


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## EdisonBhola

jug noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com


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## Andygc

EdisonBhola said:


> jug noun - Definition, pictures, pronunciation and usage notes | Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary at OxfordLearnersDictionaries.com


Try reading both parts of that definition, which does *not *say "that jug is BE and pitcher is AE".


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## kentix

I use both words in American English. To me a pitcher has a wide top that cannot be capped, although it sometimes has a non-attached cover that sits on top. But if you turn it upside down, the cover falls off and everything winds up on the floor.

A jug has a smaller, sealable opening at the top. If you screw the top on and turn it over, nothing ends up on the floor.


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## Loob

That fits precisely, kentix, with American usage as described in Edison's link.


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## heypresto

For me, all these are jugs:


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## kentix

And for me, none of them are.


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## Şafak

kentix said:


> And for me, none of them are.



There is at least one measuring jug. You can´t deny it


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## kentix

I can. That's a measuring cup. 

And although I wouldn't call it a pitcher, it's in the shape of a pitcher, not a jug.


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## suzi br

kentix said:


> A jug has a smaller, sealable opening at the top. If you screw the top on and turn it over, nothing ends up on the floor.



This is not part of the BE idea of jug - as you can see in heypresto's pictures. 

A thing with a screw on lid might be a JAR in the UK.


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## Andygc

Isn't this thread merely turning into a repetition of what the link to the Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary has told us? As Loob said.


Loob said:


> That fits precisely, kentix, with American usage as described in Edison's link.


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## natkretep

All jugs to me. Milk jugs are called creamers in AmE.

The jug (AmE) mentioned by kentix and GreenWhiteBlue is actually called a pitcher (BrE) in the Oxford Advanced.


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## kentix

suzi br said:


> A thing with a screw on lid might be a JAR in the UK.


I'm sure you wouldn't call this a jar. This is a jug to me.


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## Hermione Golightly

Nobody taught me about any difference but it is also my acquired impression that pitcher is more AE. I always use 'jug' and can't comment on any supposed differences between them unless I'm talking about cricket. Pitcher sounds quite old to me.


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## kentix

And this is jug wine.



And this is a pitcher of beer.


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## suzi br

kentix said:


> I'm sure you wouldn't call this a jar. This is a jug to me.
> View attachment 44717



I agree I wouldn't call that a jar.
But, that's not an argument against what I actually said about screw top lids - which included the modal MIGHT to keep a degree of openess to the fact that not all screw topped vessels are called jars. 

I think, in the days when people could buy a few pints from a pub to take home with them, there was specific vocabulary for that.  Sadly, although I once worked in a pub where that was possible, I can't recall the word we used for the container now.


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## JulianStuart

suzi br said:


> I agree I wouldn't call that a jar.
> But, that's not an argument against what I actually said about screw top lids - which included the modal MIGHT to keep a degree of openess to the fact that not all screw topped vessels are called jars.
> 
> I think, in the days when people could buy a few pints from a pub to take home with them, there was specific vocabulary for that.  Sadly, although I once worked in a pub where that was possible, I can't recall the word we used for the container now.


From my vast beer experience  I will share the AE name for such a container : a growler  (see below) I had not heard the term pitcher until moving to N. America but my beer experience in the UK did not cover large containers either ina pub or for take-home quantities. For me, a pitcher is an AE term for a large lidless  jug used for supplying a large volume of beer/beverage to a group at a table, often in a bar or restaurant.  Jug is a broader term.
Growler

Pitcher


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## heypresto

And just for completeness, or to toss in some more confusion/disagreement, these are flagons: 
















Even a cheap nasty plastic one would be a flagon:


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## Myridon

JulianStuart said:


> From my vast beer experience  I will share the AE name for such a container : a growler  (see below) I had not heard the term pitcher until moving to N. America


I had not heard of a growler until around 2010, perhaps even later. It's a revival of an old word.  They wouldn't have been legal after prohibition.  We've had very strict rules about beer containers until recently.


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## kentix

Myridon said:


> I had not heard of a growler until around 2010, perhaps even later. It's a revival of an old word.


I think it might have been a bit of a fad. After hearing that word a lot for a few years (or less) I haven't heard it in quite a long time. I'm not a beer drinker, though. Maybe they're still out there but with less publicity.


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## JulianStuart

kentix said:


> I think it might have been a bit of a fad. After hearing that word a lot for a few years (or less) I haven't heard it in quite a long time. I'm not a beer drinker, though. Maybe they're still out there but with less publicity.


I am an active member (consumer) of the craft beer movement ( ) and growlers are alive and well in Sonoma County, an "epicentre" of the movement.  It has spawned another container : a crowler. Many small breweries will sell their draft beer in cans: not an oxymoron - they have a special machine that fills a can and seals it for you to take home. The name may be a combination of craft and growler. 

Now back to the topic at hand.  I think my first encounter with jug as in #20 (and #25 which are also called jugs, as well as flagons) was in 1968 learning what a "jug band" was and why it was so named.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

suzi br said:


> I think, in the days when people could buy a few pints from a pub to take home with them, there was specific vocabulary for that.  Sadly, although I once worked in a pub where that was possible, I can't recall the word we used for the container now.



As noted above,  that was called a "growler", and in New York in my father's youth, back in the 1930s, the practice of sending one of the kids off to a tavern to get it filled with beer for mother and father to have with dinner (and dad did this for his parents) was at that time called "rushing the growler", although I suspect that today the practice of sending underaged children into licensed premises to purchase alcoholic beverages that they would then carry through the streets would instead be called "child abuse".



Myridon said:


> They wouldn't have been legal after prohibition.  We've had very strict rules about beer containers until recently.


And of course, 85 years ago everyone who sold beer always observed all the rules , and ignored the customary practices of the community...


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## Hermione Golightly

I wonder if it was called a growler in the UK or in England.


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## RM1(SS)

JulianStuart said:


> I will share the AE name for such a container : a growler


Never heard of it.

This is a growler.


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## sdgraham

RM1(SS) said:


> Never heard of it.


(This is a growler: McMenamins Pubs, Breweries & Historic Hotels


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## natkretep

Hermione Golightly said:


> I wonder if it was called a growler in the UK or in England.


Apparently not. The OED labels this meaning US slang.
*



4. U.S. slang. A vessel in which beer is fetched. Cf. to rush the growler (also can, bucket, etc.) at rush v.2 Phrases 4.
		
Click to expand...

*


> 1888   _N.Y. Herald_ 29 July (Farmer)   The employment by hands in a number of factories of boys and girls, under ten and thirteen years, to fetch beer for them, or in other words to rush the growler.


And here's _rush the growler_.
*



P4. U.S. slang. to rush the growler (also can, bucket, etc.): to fetch beer from a saloon in a growler (growler n. 4), can, or some other vessel. Hence: to drink freely; to get drunk. Now historical.
		
Click to expand...

*


> ...
> 1974   _Chicago Tribune_ 1 Oct. iii. 2/2   This one really hot afternoon I rushed the growler a couple of times for a neighborhood whore.
> 1991   _N.Y. Times_ 1 Dec. 108/3   The brewpub..has revived an old American custom known as rushing the growler.


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## RM1(SS)

sdgraham said:


> (This is a growler: McMenamins Pubs, Breweries & Historic Hotels


I'd call that a bottle.  A bottle filled with nasty, disgusting swill.


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## GreenWhiteBlue

RM1(SS) said:


> I'd call that a bottle.



I would too.  A growler (at least in its old-fashioned Northeastern-US variant back in the day) was more like a tin pail with a lid, rather like an old-fashioned lunch pail.  I wish Dad (who was in addition a WWII vet) were still here to give you more first-hand details, but unfortunately he went to join his own parents this past September...


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## JulianStuart

RM1(SS) said:


> I'd call that a bottle.  A bottle filled with nasty, disgusting swill.


It actually fits the description above as a jug (in #22) - whatever swill you fill it with , but it's not a pitcher.


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## RM1(SS)

JulianStuart said:


> It actually fits the description above as a jug (in #22)


I suppose.  I think it's a combination of the screw-top, the slenderness, and the fact it's made (or appears to be made) of glass that leads me to call it a bottle, not a jug.


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## suzi br

Hermione Golightly said:


> I wonder if it was called a growler in the UK or in England.


I doubt it - certainly this is not the word we used in the pub where I worked in my youth.


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## suzi br

Beer Kegs and Cider Kegs - Great value, next day delivery available  | OiPPS
It might be a keg.


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## RM1(SS)

I would call the first two jugs.  The third one is at least keg-shaped, but when I think of kegs I picture something at least twice that size.


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## Ali Smith

I've noticed that in American English you are far more likely to hear "pitcher of water" than "jug of water". Am I correct?


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## Andygc

suzi br said:


> Beer Kegs and Cider Kegs - Great value, next day delivery available  | OiPPS
> It might be a keg.


I'm very surprised to see those *flagons ** called "kegs", but any company that starts its "about us" page with "OiPPS journey began in 2011 ..." is unlikely to speak English as we know it. This is a keg, although I apologise for the branding. As a Dane once said to me, "Drink Tuborg, piss Heineken."





*See also post 25


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## kentix

Ali Smith said:


> I've noticed that in American English you are far more likely to hear "pitcher of water" than "jug of water". Am I correct?


Probably.


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