How Irish is Guinness?

It’s still St. Paddy’s Day in most of Canada for a little bit tonight. There may not be another brand of any kind associated with a particular day more than Guinness is with March 17. But I found an interesting article today on The Economist’s website explaining how British Guinness really is. It’s a known fact Guinness is now owned by British brewing and distilling giant Diageo. But Guinness has actually been headquartered in London since 1932. I was also surprised Guinness considered re-branding itself as a British beer in the 1980s. The article also gets into the history of Ireland and Britain and Guinness’s support of the Ulsters. I never would have known. Of course, nowadays when everyone wants to be Irish for the day with an Irish beer, drink an Irish beer in an Irish pub in suburban North America and visit a Guinness factory on a trip to Ireland, not re-branding itself looks like it was a smart move.

Why is Harp so cheap?

I noticed this on the weekend. I was at my local LCBO looking at Irish beer options (it was St. Patrick’s Day this past weekend) and saw a four-pack of Harp tallboys was $8. a four-pack of Guinness was $4 more. I tried to figure out why imported Irish lager that was once hard to find and in high-demand when you found it was now being sold for the same price of gut-rot stuff. I examined the cans closely. They do appear to be from Ireland. It’s not a deal where the beer is brewed by Sleeman or some other brewer making a sub-par beer with a famous name. (Remember old Canadian Carlsberg?) I myself have found Harp to be a solid lager, but not as premium as some have said. Still, $2 a tallboy is baffling for Ontario. Perhaps the tallboy is new and it’s a way to get new followers and drinkers of the beer? It’s my only suggestion after many Google queries. If I had the free time I’d pick up the phone and inquire with Diageo, parent company of Guinness and Harp. Maybe I will do just that. Hang on…

St. Patrick’s Day and Guinness

I know a couple of weeks ago I wrote about how I was annoyed by the exploitation of what was once a religious holiday by booze companies like Jameson, and Diageo, parent company of brands such as Guinness, Bailey’s and Harp. But it’s St. Patrick’s Day, so let’s talk about…Budweiser! No, let’s talk about Guinness.

Really, Guinness deserves the respect it gets as a premium beer brand. First of all, ordering a pint at a bar or properly pouring yourself one at home from a can, is almost an event. When you first have that full pint glass, you are almost hesitant to drink it. With its thick caramel head and brown body that deepens to an almost black colour, it’s beautiful to look at. The smoky aroma of heavily roasted malts tells one they are in for something great. The taste is a nutty roasted one, with a hint of dark chocolate.

One amazing point of Guinness is, though it is heavy in flavour and body, it is actually quite light in alcohol. At 4.2% alcohol percentage by volume, it is evidence a lighter beer does not have to taste like a glorified cup of water.

If you were wondering, that rattling sound you hear in the cans of Guinness is a widget that looks similar to a ping pong ball. its purpose is to create that creamy head at home that you get at the bar. I’m not a science expert, so I’ll let the Wikipedia article explain it. The widget is also why you hear a sucking sound when you open the can. Gas is being released from inside the widget.

I’ll add one more piece of information that has to do with a type of spirit found on Diageo’s website. The title of the article is whisk(e)y. I think this is cool because it makes special note that whisky is spelled without the e when we talk about Scotch and Canadian whisky, but officially American and Irish whiskey is spelled with an e. That’s something for any of you fellow word nerds out there.