Sadly not many beers from the southwest make it up to New England, but next time I’m down in the area I’ll look for that piñon porter, which does sound lovely. Happily there’s plenty of Irish here in Boston that know how to pour a proper Guinness pint in the meantime.
I was expecting this all to head towards the best drinking experience. Instead, the only “problem” this is solving is delivery time for an impatient Brit who hasn’t the patience for an excellent pour and an Irish tradition. Have yourself a Tetley and be done with it.
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Actually I’m not that big on stout, in general.
EDIT: You know what, I partially take that back. I don’t care for Guinness and I didn’t like the milk stout my brother-in-law picked out (he then proceeded to drink the brews that I picked), so I haven’t had much variety lately. The last stout I remember liking (and this was a while back) was Sheaf. Given this hit-and-miss, I tend to go with what I know, which is usually on the ale-end of the continuum – preferably where it says “Belgium” or “Belgian-style” somewhere on the label.
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Nice find. And… 2018!
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I got a better way! If you are going to pour Guinness into unusual conveyances try this! Go pick up a pack of 100 5 oz Dixie cups. Those are the tiny ones. Then Take you can of Guinness and half fill all 100 of those. You will just have 100 cups of Guinness foam with about 1 drop of actual Guinness at the bottom.
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At a bar I once tended, a regular offered me a $20 tip if I could learn how to put a four-leaf clover into the foam of his Guinness the next time he arrived.
I learned the trick (in which the settling period is essential) and then performed it flawlessly upon the customer’s return.
I even gently reminded him of the offer when presenting his glass.
He stiffed me, the bastard!
Anyway, I still enjoy Guinness on draught.
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Yup. Those are the best brews, hands down. But I do like stout, and I don’t really dislike Guinness, but I prefer Murphy’s, and would choose Sam Smith’s Oatmeal Stout or Imperial Stout if I had the extra money.
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Occasionally the Guinness reps would come round the pubs near me and actually train people to pour “correctly”. Usually though they’d just leave a poster or some beer mats with the instructions on.
The usual way at my local (which did used to have a sizeable Irish contingent each year when the racing was on) was as follows:
- Grab nearest pint glass, maybe a Guinness one, but we only had so much shelf space so it might end up being branded anything
- Pour about 3/4 of a pint, held at whatever angle you felt like
- Demand money from the customer, increase prices if they look like a tourist
- Pour the rest in, maybe pushing forward on the handle if you could be bothered, possibly drawing something like a shamrock if you were using the pump where the bracket didn’t get in the way.
- Plonk it in front of the customer and tell them to get out the bloody way so you can serve the next bastard.
And that’s how a working bartender pours Guinness.
*edit I used to drink Guinness, and it worked out well because pretty much every pub I walked into served it, so I always knew what I was having, and anyone buying me a drink knew what to get me. Then hit hit the dizzying heights of £3 a pint (currently £3 for a pint of anything is cheap), so I switched to ales, which means I end up drinking something different in every pub. I also realised that you can spend all day wanking over the ‘correct way to pour’, or the ‘right blend of hops’, but at the end of the day you won’t give a shit after two pints so you might as well drink what’s cheap.
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You’ve never had it in Ireland, I’m guessing. It tastes like cream and the anticipation, as it develops the proper head, is a big part of the appreciation of it.
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Sadly true. Worked for Philips for quite a while and spent a lot of time in the Netherlands, but frankly their beers are horrid and I was constantly reminded that two of the world’s greatest beer cultures were just a bit either east or west and I was stuck in the middle.
Never dream that life is fair.
One of the sons, now, spent long enough on a working visit that included enough weekends to be worthwhile. Bringing beer back would have been a poor use of his limit but I do have a bit of the not-for-export local variant of Bushmill’s. Not bad whiskey at all, that.
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I think these people need to hear those four required words: "Youre not doing it right."You’re doing it wrong
ETA That’s three times in fewer days I’ve made egregious errors like this. I very badly need a weekend and a long lie in.
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“My Goodness, My Guinness”
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I had stopped drinking stouts entirely once I realized how terrible US Guinness tasted.
And then I found this:
::swoon::
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From what I’ve heard, Guinness is highly dependent on the nature of the local water wherever it is brewed. Aficionados say the only decent brew is the one made in Dublin. It’s not called ‘Liffey water’ for nothing.
Yes. This.
The Sam Smith’s Oatmeal Stout is as close to perfection as I’ve ever tasted in a stout. Absolutely traditional, sublimely balanced and just a treat to drink.
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I’m with you on this one.
Guiness is great for when I want a stout/porter, because the way craft/micro beer selection is in stores there are 90 different IPAs, 70 pale ales, 20 various wheats and sours, and like 3 porters/stouts, all of which are something like 9-11% alcohol.
They at least have one of the only 11 Trappist beers in the world. La Trappe.
As does, weirdly, NY.
So there’s that. But yeah not many Dutch beers I can think of off the top of my head that are considered any good.
There’s a lot of claimed explanations. I don’t think that can be one of them. Until recently there were only 3 Guinness Breweries in the world. And if memory serves most of the international brewing sites only brew export/foreign stout. Rather than Guinness Draft. And most use a wort extract/concentrate shipped from Ireland. So the brewing is pretty much done entirely with Irish water. Just gets watered down with local water and fermented.
An uncle swears its the yeast. The yeast dies in transit, ruining the beer. But Guinness like most European beer is likely pasteurized even for its home market (can’t find confirmation). And its pretty famously filtered (the Isinglas they used to use is why it wasn’t vegan). So there shouldn’t be any yeast in there.
I think it boils down to two things. First Guinness for the Irish market is a different product. Its got a lower ABV, and slightly different recipe. The second is just importation. Imported beer just spends a fuck load of time getting anywhere. Months on a shipping container sometimes. Additional time in warehouses and in transit on either end of the trip.
That’s the big reason so little American Craft makes it out of the country. All those juicy unfiltered IPAs have a shelf life of like 3 months. By the time you finish exporting them they’re trash.
That fucks beer up. The Guinness we drink in the US is 100% brewed in Ireland (AFAIK). But its old as hell by the time it lands here.
I’ve been told a number of times that the Nigerian Guinness plant actually produces the “best” Guinness. The awards winningest, brewers and press rate it highest iteration. But they’re producing Foreign Stout. Not Guinness Draft or Extra Stout. So its not really the same beer as drank in Ireland, or imported to the US and Europe.
I love that god damn brewery. They’re still fermenting in open soap stone tanks. They’re making world class beer on 200 Year old tech.
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I thought the whole point of heavily-hopped IPAs was so that they would survive long shipping times. On the other hand, I have no idea what a real back-in-the-Empire-days IPA would taste like once it had spent months on a ship going around the Cape of Good Hope. I’d guess “drinkable, but not overly good.”
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