diff --git a/lib/sinatra/base.rb b/lib/sinatra/base.rb
index 32ae3c45..2078056a 100644
--- a/lib/sinatra/base.rb
+++ b/lib/sinatra/base.rb
@@ -27,6 +27,10 @@ module Sinatra
       end
     end
 
+    def accept?(type)
+      preferred_type.include?(type)
+    end
+
     def preferred_type(*types)
       accepts = accept # just evaluate once
       return accepts.first if types.empty?
@@ -38,7 +42,6 @@ module Sinatra
       end
     end
 
-    alias accept? preferred_type
     alias secure? ssl?
 
     def forwarded?
diff --git a/test/request_test.rb b/test/request_test.rb
index 7654cd41..16cac39d 100644
--- a/test/request_test.rb
+++ b/test/request_test.rb
@@ -52,6 +52,7 @@ class RequestTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
 
   it "makes accept types behave like strings" do
     request = Sinatra::Request.new('HTTP_ACCEPT' => 'image/jpeg; compress=0.25')
+    assert                     request.accept?('image/jpeg')
     assert_equal 'image/jpeg', request.preferred_type.to_s
     assert_equal 'image/jpeg', request.preferred_type.to_str
     assert_equal 'image',      request.preferred_type.split('/').first