Guinness In Ireland...

[Palinka (RIP)]

Ireland's alcoholiday celebration of Guinness, "Arthur's Day", is going "horribly wrong", claim Irish authorities.

[Mr. Viking]

I never liked it, always seemed to be trying hard to be cool.Every time guinness-diageo do something like this I cringe and stop drinking it for a while. It's not even that good a beer. Try Beamish (My mum used to work for an ad agency they employed. They imported colt 45 into ireland in the late 70's/ early 80's. Got a bollocking for suggesting the tagline "you get sicker quicker drinking colt 45 malt liquor")or Smithwicks instead, or Irish Bass, or, if you can find it, the wonderful Clotworthy Dobbin, one of the best beers. At least in makes the 5% mark

[Mr Boozificator]

I never liked it, always seemed to be trying hard to be cool.Every time guinness-diageo do something like this I cringe and stop drinking it for a while. It's not even that good a beer. Try Beamish (My mum used to work for an ad agency they employed. They imported colt 45 into ireland in the late 70's/ early 80's. Got a bollocking for suggesting the tagline "you get sicker quicker drinking colt 45 malt liquor")or Smithwicks instead, or Irish Bass, or, if you can find it, the wonderful Clotworthy Dobbin, one of the best beers. At least in makes the 5% mark

Ahahahahhahhaah no!
Nononono.
Caffreys Black yes. Beamish? Why, but why?

[Palinka (RIP)]

Got to concur with Mr Boozificator on that. Beamish gives me the "KFC two-steps" everytime.

[peetie44]

I like Boddington's "Pub Draft" cans (with the widget...similar to the Guinness cans).

[Jiggers McCoy]

Belhaven's good too.

[Mr. Viking]

I drank Belhaven for a while and wondered why I wasn't getting drunk. I then found out it's only 3.2%abv on draught and 3.5% in cans. That's practically a soft drink

[Jiggers McCoy]

5.2% every time I've had it. I'm referring to the Scottish Ale. Stouts as a style are usually pretty light.

[Mr. Viking]

must be different for export a lot of UK beer is like that. Tennents is 5% export, 4 here, Bass is 5%, between 3.8 and 4.5 here, harp is the same as Tennents. In scotland it's mostly Belhaven best, which is a weak, creamy ale. I have a feeling Boddingtons is the same in that it is stronger for export. The stuff here is similar to Belhaven

[coqui_chris]

Hmmm ...

While you're sitting down to your pint of Guinness, I hope you remember that Arthur Guinness was a British informer during the Irish rebellion in 1798, his descendant Lord Iveagh gave £100,000 to the UVF and after the 1916 Easter Rising Guinness sacked anyone they suspected of having sympathy towards the Rebellion.

They also thought about packing it up and moving to Britain in 1981-2 ...

[Palinka (RIP)]

In the book 'The Thirsty Dragon' by Lyn Ebenezer it claims that Guinness originated from North Wales, she suggests that an Arthur Price, who was a Welshman, created a drink believed to have been called 'porter' and took the recipe with him to Ireland. Later on he hired a servant called Richard Guinness, whose son opened a brewery.

Buy the book and read it for yourselves...

[Bobby Stout]

Hmmm ...

While you're sitting down to your pint of Guinness, I hope you remember that Arthur Guinness was a British informer during the Irish rebellion in 1798, his descendant Lord Iveagh gave £100,000 to the UVF and after the 1916 Easter Rising Guinness sacked anyone they suspected of having sympathy towards the Rebellion.

They also thought about packing it up and moving to Britain in 1981-2 ...

The historian who wrote that was on to say it was just hearsay pretty quick

Padraig Ó Ruairc on September 26, 2013 at 12:01 pm said:

The Arthur Guinness / British Spy? Can of worms…
Hello there – yesterday I published a piece on here about allegations made by the United Irishman Walter Cox in the Union Star that Arthur Guinness was a suspected British Spy during the 1798 rebellion. Since then a number of people including “An Phoblacht” and “Broadsheet .ie” have ran with the story in the lead up to Arthur’s Day, and it’s spread a bit like wildfire. My good friend Liam Hogan has since pointed out to me that Cox, the man who made the allegation isn’t a reliable source – so I’m going to put my hands up and admit I made too much out of this. Although I never claimed I had definite proof Guinness was a spy other people have taken it that way – so to be clear the allegation made in 1797 that Arthur Guinness was a spy is probably without foundation. I’ve always believed that when any decent historian is presented with new evidence that shows they are wrong, they should put up their hands and say so – so that’s what I’m doing now.

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2013/09/25/guinness-snout/

Anyway, the topic in hand. Guinness doesn't just taste better in Ireland, it tastes better in different pubs. Any experienced drinker of it will know where you can get the best pints and most Dublin drinkers can name 10 off the top of their heads at the drop of a hat. I was in one of my favourites last night, The Long Hall. If any of you are into Thin Lizzy, you can see Phil Lynott sitting at the bar in that pub in the video for his solo classic Old Town. The bar hasn't changed a bit. No music, slightly smelly carpet, but great service, amazing pints and absolutely zero pretensions amongst the clientele.

[Mr. Viking]

Also, the guinness made in England was consistently of a better quality than that made in Ireland, and led the change to more modern production processes which have made it possible to get better quaity beer exported without going completely sour.

As for the anti-nationalist bent of Arthur Guinness, that was normal for the time, the same way segregation was in the US. Had he not held those views it would have been difficult to do business with English distributors (Their success has always been down to aggressive oversea sales) and would not have become the ubiquitous drink it is today. You might not even have heard of it.

My great grandfather worked at St. James' Gate after retiring from the military. It was understood that you should be protestant and if you wanted to marry a catholic lady you would be asked to resign. History isn't pretty

[Bobby Stout]

I couldn't really give a hoot about Arthur Guinness or where they brew the stuff so long as I have a creamy pint in my hand that keeps its head consistently till the end of the pint glass.
The proof of the pudding is that there isn't actually a single male, who is Irish, of my acquaintance that I like who doesn't drink Guinness.

[Palinka (RIP)]