Guinness pour

Like many, @Tut is just tiered of this entire conversation that happens all the time. Drink it if you like it. Drink Bud if you like it. If you enjoy it, that is what matters. Though me, and many others just don't understand how people here have this almost romantic notion of Guinness Draught served in its current condition. If Anheuser Bush was first to create Guinness Draught in this form (pathetic nitro), then everyone on here would chastise this as a gimmick. Instead, craft breweries across the country have adopted this, and legions of people wax poetic about how much better this same bad nitro stout is in another country.

 

If you read my other posts in this thread, you would know how I feel about this subject. I drink Guinness about 5 times a year now, it's become kind of a nostalgic remembrance at this point to me. Just the tone was what makes me laugh, like I said, I actually agree with a lot of the stuff @Tut has said.
Probably best this thread just dies it's eventual death ASAP at this point.

 

Show me on the doll where the Guinness in Ireland touched you.

I kid, I kid, I actually agree with you.

 

I don't drink Guinness, but the ones I see poured are to filled to maybe 2/3, they go do another pour, come back and top it off. Looks good to me.

 

Well, Guinness has alway been progressive with their savvy marketing campaigns,...

http://www.factfiend.com/the-****-guinness-posters-they-dont-want-you-to-see/

 

I've no problem with people drinking and enjoying Guinness anymore than I care whether people drink Coors Light. I have a big problem with those who insist the Guinness is better in Ireland. That silliness has been recognized here for ages as the oldest beer myth in the world. It's been demonstrated false and ridiculed repeatedly over the years, but predictably, at least once a year, somebody(usually a newbie) starts spouting that nonsense again. It gets tiresome.

 

Very good! If I wasn't so traumatized, I'd be laughing.

 

I'm British - I have British friends who subscribe to the same myth. It's fairly universal (except in my previous Ukrainian example where it was legitimate). On the topic of myths/stereotypes - a lot I see on here are fairly American-specific that I can't relate to. But the "oh my god Guinness is like a fucking meal" one is definitely one I hear from several friends

 

I heard the "meal in a glass" silliness again just a couple weeks ago. It was said by a guy who usually drinks Bud Light, but obviously ordered a Guinness to impress the wine drinking woman he was with.

 

Draft Guinness has been nitro vs. naturally-conditioned in Ireland since the mid-1960's. Before the nitro system came on-stream in Ireland, I'd doubt there was much draft Guinness around the world. Perhaps there was some and I'd agree it was probably keg (pasteurized, carbonated) but my understanding is most of the Guinness sold internationally up to the time the company invented nitro dispense was bottled. Much of that was Foreign Extra Stout.

I think a more plausible historical reason for the "Irish Guinness is better" mantra is that the nitro version remained unpasteurized in Ireland through the 60's-80's. That plus high turnover plus freshness would have ensured (surely) a better pint than pasteurized nitro Guinness sent on a long journey. Ya?

 

Dont think that Ive ever ordered a Guinness in my life and I dont plan to, but I have seen some pours be improperly handled and I felt sorry for those people that had to drink that.

 

The unpasteurised factor was important but before 1964 Guinness was keg (and for the UK brewed at Park Royal ) everywhere but Ireland. It was common practice to begin pouring a short while before pub opening time and the beer would be a mixture of Guinness drawn from fresh and old casks.This was of course what Guinness was trying to emulate with its nitro crime.

 

I never really thought what form draft Guinness took in England from 1936 until Park Royal closed, so you are saying it was a kegged product meaning, filtered I'd guess and carbonated with CO2 but presumably not pasteurized, or not for all that time (1936-2005)? And whereever sold outside Ireland and U.K. (I don't think there was much, but probably some), kegged as indicated but also probably pasteurized? Is that it?

 

Would like to know also. It is my opinion that Guinness wasn't pasteurized until after the 1980's, but I could be wrong on that. And I did hit a lot of back east Irish bars during the '80's so those guys might have been hauling the Irish home market kegs in somehow, (certainly worse violations in those pubs were going on at the time), and they were the sort of folk that would appreciate the difference in kegs if there was one and they had the means and connections to act upon their preference. There were sudden "collections" for the "Troubles and widders n orfans benefit" going on frequently on the busy nights. This might explain why I thought there was a real difference from bar to bar, perhaps more than the marketing schtick.

Anyway, I drank a lot of it in the '80's, a very light beer, easy to slam and the abv was low enough to hold steady on the pool table. The Export might be considered thick, maybe something close to a meal, but the draft stuff isn't and I never thought it was ever.

 

Oh, me. Right here.

 

Jackson's first US edition of The World Guide to Beer (1977) says "For the British market, it [Draught Guinness] is pasteurized...In Ireland...pasteurization is not thought necessary..." (pg 159). If they were flash pasteurizing kegs being shipped to (or brewed in - see next quote) the UK, they were certainly doing the same for US bound kegs of Guinness Draught.

Five years later in 1982, in his first US Pocket Guide to Beer, Jackson wrote of Guinness Draught: "In Britain, from whatever source, it is pasteurized". As for the US market: "An Irish Draught Stout and an Extra Stout, both pasteurized, are exported to North America." (pg 89).

Guinness Draught first hit the US market in the mid-60s when the US was a tiny market for Guinness. As late as 1979, the US accounted for only about 1% of all Guinness (draught, and bottled ES) sales and half of all Guinness sold in the US was in NYC (!). At that time, there were only 33 bars in NYC with Guinness on tap, 18 of them in Manhattan according to a New York Magazine article which later quotes a Guinness USA VP.