8/20/2014 Update: Additional sources have said the 6 ounce pours will be limited to the Food and Wine Festival booths themselves. Other World Showcase locations will serve their normal selection and sizes. It sounds like decisions are still in flux a bit, but y'all have shown a lot of interest in this. Original article below.

I'm not one to just post everything I hear, but today I received some information from a reliable source that has interesting implications if it comes to pass.

According to this source, during the Food and Wine Festival both the festival booths and the normal beer locations will be limited to six ounce pours when purchasing a draft beer. There will be no 12 ounce cups or 22 ounce souvenir steins available as you walk around World Showcase.

Extending this to the normal beer locations makes sense as you could go to Bier in Germany instead of the Germany booth and purchase a regular sized Altenmünster Oktoberfest. It's unclear whether this would extend into the table service restaurants, but I doubt it will. Who would want to go to eat at Biergarten and not be able to get a stein of beer?

What are the implications? Disney seems to be encouraging tasting different beers through six ounce pours. Perhaps they're trying to reduce the number of beers that run out early by spreading out the supply through smaller pours. Whether this works remains to be seen.

On the other hand, if someone finds a beer they would like more of, they're limited to purchasing another six ounce pour. The previous arrangement of $3.00 - 4.00 sample pours, $5.00 - $7.00 twelve ounce pours, and $12.00 - $13.00 22-ounce steins provided a small discount to those who want more than a taste. For example, all the beers at Craft Beers last year had $3.50, $6.75, and $12.25 price points. Under the new arrangement, 24 ounces of beer (as close as you'll get to the 22 ounce stein) will be $14.50 and won't include a stein assuming the same prices. However, moving from a sample to a twelve ounce pour is only saving you a quarter (which is nothing when you're at Disney), which might be why they would do away with it.

My source is pretty solid on this, but things can always change between now and when the festival begins. If this does come to pass, all I can suggest is to just go with it. Give some different beers a try, or get a flight where available. They'll probably be slightly cheaper than buying four separate pours and maybe you'll find something new to enjoy.