Pure Genius! *Updated* (Guinness)

Member Name: The Duke

Product:	Guinness
Date:	10/03/01 (840 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Nice taste

Disadvantages: Tends to get you drunk...

Guinness, as you know, is probably one of the best known beers in the world, mainly thanks to a number of unforgettable adverts spanning over the last 20 years or so, although I don’t think the current crop do it justice at all.

For anyone who doesn’t know, Guinness is what is known as a “stout” – this means that it’s a lot heavier than your ordinary lager beer. Some people say that it’s quite filling, and that they feel like they’ve eaten a meal after having a pint or two. It’s got quite a bitter sort of taste, and so only few people actually like it straightaway – most people need to get used to the bitterness before it grows on them, and some girls I know have taken to drinking it with blackcurrant cordial in order to deaden the bitterness. Personally, I think this is sacrilege, and they should be forced to drink extra calorie cheap lager for the rest of their lives…

There are two main thoughts on how Guinness is poured – generally the glass is tilted approx. 45 degrees, and the beer is poured in either two or three stages, with some time given the stout to “settle” before applying another top-up. When finished, give the pint some more time to settle properly, admire, then drink. A properly poured pint of Guinness should have a head on it which is somewhere between 5mm and 1cm, and no more than that.

Some bar-staff may do some fancy pint shifting while the beer is being poured, and use the incoming flow of stout to “draw” a shamrock on the top.

Unlike your lagers of the world, it’s also said that Guinness doesn’t travel well – so Guinness you get in the UK (brewed in London) will be better than Guinness in Europe, but for some reason worse than Guinness you get in Dublin, and while the Guinness in Dublin is good, it’s nothing compared to the Guinness you’re given when you take the tour of the Guinnes
s brewery in Dublin – sheer heaven! As far as I know, Guinness have been working for years on why this is the case, but the general consensus at the moment is that it’s the water supply that is used because all the other ingredients are the same. Guinness admit that a Guinness in Great Britain is exactly the same as Irish Guinness because everything is exactly the same – brewing process, ingredients and event he water used!

Part of the reason for the black colour (really it’s a very dark ruby red / brown) is the roasted malted barley which is used. It’s also said that Guinness is high in iron and if you were a blood donor here in Northern Ireland a few years ago, you were given a glass of Guinness instead of todays tea and biccies. Many people believe that Guinness is very fattening, and contains loads of calories. This is not really true – yes, there are some calories in Guinness, but this is true of all alcoholic drinks, and the more alcohol in the drink, the more calories it will have.

One thing about Guinness drinkers (myself included) and that is that they’re almost always “beer snobs” who look down upon lager drinkers as second-class citizens… No, I jest really!

There were rumours going around a few years ago that Queens University Students Union was the largest consumer of Guinness in Ireland, and taking that to it’s logical conclusion, the world, but figures were never produced to support this claim. Now, it’s the airport bar in Dublin Airport which gets this claim because of Irish people getting their “last proper drink” before leaving the country, and their “first proper drink in ages” when arriving back! What’s not in doubt though, is the standard of Guinness at Dublin Airport where the bar there has received many awards over the last few years as regards it’s Guinness.

One final note out there for anyone who is
a big Guinness fan – it was shown in an issue of New Scientist a few years ago that it was practically possible to live on Guinness - all you needed was 42 pints per day, with 2 pints of full cream milk and a glass of pure orange juice. Not even as an Irishman with a terrible thirst would I be tempted to try that one out!

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