The Demise of the 40-Year-Old Virgin (Guinness Draught)

Member Name: marandina

Product:	Guinness Draught
Date:	13/09/05 (647 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Distinctive taste, creamy head

Disadvantages: Bitter after taste

It’s amazing how your drinking tastes can change over the years isn’t it? I distinctly remember drinking pints of mild when I lived in Birmingham but it’s hardly in vogue these days and probably the last preserve of Brummies wearing flat caps taking a break from racing their pigeons. Then it was a combination of bitter and lager otherwise called a “Mickey Mouse”, then lager for years and most recently bitter. So there was an air of inevitability that I would finally try Guinness in my 40th year. Ironically, my good lady had got a taste for the big G when she was pregnant with our first. Something to do with plenty of iron in it or something. Maybe it was just a brilliantly conceived excuse on her part (he he).

If you are going to try the world-famous Irish stout then why not make it a special occasion? I was going on holiday to Ireland and had lost count of the people that had told me that Irish Guinness tasted so much better than the English version. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to compare notes as I hadn’t actually tried the English version apart from in Guinness cake but that doesn’t really count does it? So anyway, there I am a tourist like hundreds of others surveying the pubs on the sea front at Dingle, Kerry. The reason for me peering in through each window was to check out their vegetarian menus and what a decent choice I found for once. Having settled on a rather quaint looking establishment, me and the family went in to grab some nosh and I was minutes aware from no longer being a Guinness virgin.

So we’re in the pub and I ask the barman for a tab. He tells me “no” to start with but the twinkle in his eye gives away the fact that he’s only joshing. He does smile and eventually says “no problem”. I think about asking him to tell me a bit more about Guinness before I finally partake but he doesn’t look the type to take me too seriously so I don’t. Besides, he’d probably come up with all kinds of old Oirish blarney instead.

If I had have asked him I’m sure he would have told me all about the eponymous Arthur Guinness taking a 34-year old lease on Mark Rainsford’s Ale Brewery in James’s Street, Dublin in 1759. Innocuous enough at the time given the amount of competition in the market but the supply of water did make it a good location. Up against tough breweries from London, Guinness wanted to establish a local demand for home made beer and so his “porter” beer containing roasted barley and giving it its dark colour came to challenge the English giants together with the popular local demand for whisky, gin and poteen.

Guinness’s brew became hugely popular and the conception of a more full bodied version in the 1820’s gave rise to the expression “extra stout porter” and hence the derivative “stout” (porter beer being a colloquial term drawn from porters in Convent Garden and Billingsgate markets). By 1914 the St. James’s brewery was the largest of its kind in the world and with the huge operation that is Guinness today, it still retains that mystique established by the Dublin formula founded on the waters of the river Liffey.

Well, of course, the barman didn’t tell me any of that but simply carried on serving his customers. We sat down and chose our meals; I waited for my first pint of Guinness which duly arrived after a few minutes. I’d seen many a pint of the black stuff over the years and told that the gen-u-ine pint has the shape of a Shamrock in its head. Hmmm....I’m sure this is merely a gimmick and the fact that I didn’t have a shamrock in my particular pint didn’t put me off. I knew that the ideal serving temperature is best served at 6°C (that’s 42.8°F), with the legendary two-part pour. As everyone who knows anything surely must know, first tilt the glass to 45 degrees and carefully pour until three-quarters full. Then place the glass on the bar counter and leave to settle. Once the surge has settled, fill the glass to the brim. It takes about 119.5 seconds to pour the perfect pint. Not that I was checking with my stopwatch or anything but maybe some do, who knows? How did I know all this? Well, there’s been enough ad campaigns harping on about the famous Guinness pour usually employing the dulcet tones of Rutger Hauer and an armchair and I watch the ads, don’t you? *grin* It’s that unique mix of nitrogen and carbon dioxide that helps create Guinness Draught’s liquid swirl that tumbles, surges and gradually separates into a black body and smooth creamy head.

So aaaaaaaanyway, the taste. 40 years of history shuddered as I put the glass to my mouth and supped like many other pints had been supped before it but never a pint of Guinness. I was expecting it to be very strong and thick, what with that macho dark colour and stuff. It really did taste slightly sweet with a bitter aftertaste. My nose wrinkled a little but the creamy head eased my through into the main body and I managed to surface without a Guinness moustache (is that good or bad?). There was a distinctly thinner, watery taste to Guinness than I’d imagined but then I was convinced from the look of it that I’d get something thick and syrupy. It would make a great story if I told you how I went on to neck a further 7 or 8 pints, sang Irish rugby songs at the bar with a travelling band of minstrels and got thrown out onto the street at kicking out time. The reality is that I quietly finished my meal and continued with my holiday *yawn*. I could also list a string of Guinness-centric recipes like Guinness cake and stuff but you wouldn’t want that either, would you? Guinness is for drinking, surely?

As far as strength goes, the abv is generally around 4.2% but it varies around the world according to the version of Guinness being served. Draught comes in all shapes and sizes these days with Guinness draught in cans, Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, Guinness Draught Extra Cold and Guinness Original in bottles all available in pubs, clubs and your local supermarket I’m sure. Like most things these days, the price of Guinness will fluctuate according to where you drink it. I thought beer and spirits were quite pricey in Ireland and seem to recall paying something like 4 Euro for a pint but over here in England it’ll be par at anything between £2.50 and £3.

Since finally breaking my duck I’ve had a few more pints. To tell you the truth, it went nicely with my meal and wasn’t too strong so definitely a nice wee drink. However, too many of these and I think the bitter aftertaste would eventually catch up with me so Guinness will remain an occasional distraction for me. It didn’t seem appropriate to toast the England boys on their famous Ashes win yesterday with a pint of Guinness and it was the last thing on my mind following the football debacle in Belfast from a few days ago *sigh* but I’m sure there will be suitable occasions in the future where the black stuff will be wheeled out.

Thanks for reading!

Mara

Summary: The Famous Black Stuff