Guinness

A pint of Guinness

Guinness (pronounced /ˈɡɪnɪs/) is a popular Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness (1725–1803) at St. James's Gate, Dublin. Guinness is based on the porter style that originated in London in the early 18th century and is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide. A distinctive feature is the burnt flavour which is derived from the use of roasted barley. For many years a portion of the drink was aged to give a sharp lactic flavour, although Guinness has refused to confirm whether this still occurs. The thick creamy head is the result of the beer being mixed with nitrogen when being poured. It is popular with Irish people both in Ireland and abroad and, in spite of a decline in consumption over recent years, is the best-selling alcoholic drink of all time in Ireland annually.

History

Arthur Guinness started brewing ales from 1759 in Leixlip, then at the St. James's Gate Brewery, Dublin. On 31 December he signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum for the unused brewery. Ten years later on 19 May 1769 Guinness exported his ale for the first time, when six and a half barrels were shipped to England.

Guinness is sometimes believed to have originated the stout style of beer. However the first use of the word stout in relation to beer was in a letter in the Egerton Manuscript dated 1677, almost 50 years before Arthur Guinness was born. Arthur Guinness started selling the dark beer porter in 1778. The first Guinness beers to use the term were Single Stout and Double Stout in the 1840s.

The breweries pioneered several quality control efforts. The brewery hired the statistician William Sealy Gosset in 1899, who achieved lasting fame under the pseudonym "Student" for techniques developed for Guinness, particularly Student's t-distribution and the even more commonly known Student's t-test. Guinness brewed their last porter in 1974.

Guinness acquired the Distillers Company in 1986. The Company then merged with Grand Metropolitan in 1997 to form Diageo plc.

The Guinness brewery in Park Royal, London closed in 2005. The production of all Guinness was switched to St. James's Gate Brewery, Dublin.

Guinness has also been referred to as "Black Stuff" and as a "Pint of Plain" - referred to in the famous refrain of Flann O'Brien's poem "The Workman's Friend": "A pint of plain is your only man."

Composition

Guinness stout is made from water, barley, hops, brewer's yeast and is treated with isinglass finings made from fishes' air bladders, although Guinness has claimed that this finings material is unlikely to remain in the finished product. A portion of the barley is roasted to give Guinness its dark colour and characteristic taste. It is pasteurised and filtered. Despite its reputation as a "meal in a glass", Guinness only contains 198 kcal (838 kilojoules) per imperial pint (1460 kJ/l), fewer than skimmed milk or orange juice and most other non-light beers.

Draught Guinness and its canned counterpart contain nitrogen (N₂) as well as carbon dioxide (CO₂). Nitrogen is less soluble than carbon dioxide, which allows the beer to be put under high pressure without making it fizzy. The high pressure of dissolved gas is required to enable very small bubbles to be formed by forcing the draught beer through fine holes in a plate in the tap, which causes the characteristic "surge" (the widget in cans and bottles achieves the same effect). The perceived smoothness of draught Guinness is due to its low level of carbon dioxide and the creaminess of the head caused by the very fine bubbles that arise from the use of nitrogen and the dispensing method described above. "Original Extra Stout" contains only carbon dioxide, causing a more acidic taste.

Contemporary Guinness Draught and Extra Stout are weaker than they were in the 19th century, when they had an original gravity of over 1.070. Foreign Extra Stout and Special Export Stout, with alcohol by volume of over 7%, are perhaps closest to the original in character.

Although Guinness may appear to be black, it is officially a very dark shade of ruby.

Guinness and Health

Studies claim that Guinness can be beneficial to the heart. Researchers found that antioxidant compounds in Guinness, similar to those found in certain fruits and vegetables, are responsible for health benefits because they slow down the deposit of harmful cholesterol on the artery walls.]

Guinness ran an advertising campaign in the 1920s which stemmed from market research - when people told the company that they felt good after their pint, the slogan was born – "Guinness is Good for You". Guinness was told to stop using the slogan decades ago – and the firm still makes no health claims for the drink. Diageo, the company that now manufactures Guinness, said: "We never make any medical claims for our drinks." The company now runs advertisements that call for "responsible drinking".

Some vegetarians might object to Guinness as the production process involves the use of isinglass made from fish. It is used as a fining agent for settling out suspended matter in the vat. The isinglass is retained in the floor of the vat but it is possible that minute quantities might be carried over into the beer.

Varieties

Guinness Original/Extra Stout

Guinness stout is available in a number of variants and strengths, which include:

• Guinness Draught, sold in kegs, widget cans, and bottles: 4.1 to 4.3% alcohol by volume (ABV); the Extra Cold is served through a super cooler at 3.5°C (38.3°F).
• Guinness Original/Extra Stout: ranges from 4.2 to 6.0% ABV
• Guinness Foreign Extra Stout: 7.5% ABV. The basis is an unfermented but hopped Guinness wort extract shipped from Dublin, which is added to local ingredients and brewed locally. In Nigeria a proportion of sorghum is used. Foreign Extra Stout is blended with a small amount of intentionally soured beer.
• Guinness Special Export Stout, Commissioned by John Martin of Belgium in 1912. The first variety of Guinness to be pasteurised, in 1930.
• Guinness Bitter, an English-style bitter beer: 4.4% ABV.
• Guinness Extra Smooth, a smoother stout: 5.5% ABV.
• Malta Guinness, a non-alcoholic sweet drink.
• Guinness Mid-Strength, a low-alcohol stout test-marketed in Limerick, Ireland in March 2006 and Dublin from May 2007: 2.8% ABV.
• Kaliber, a premium alcohol-free lager. It is brewed as a full strength lager; then at the end of the brewing process, the alcohol is removed: 0.05% ABV.
• Guinness Red, brewed in exactly the same way as Guinness except that the barley is only lightly roasted so that it produces a lighter, slightly fruitier red ale; test-marketed in Britain in February 2007: 4.1% ABV.
• 250 Anniversary Stout; 5% ABV.

In October 2005, Guinness announced the Brewhouse Series, a limited-edition collection of draught stouts available for roughly six months each. There were three beers in the series.

• Brew 39 was sold in Dublin from late 2005 until early 2006. It had the same alcohol content (ABV) as Guinness Draught, used the same gas mix and settled in the same way, but had a slightly different taste. Many found it to be lighter in taste, somewhat closer to Beamish stout than standard Irish Guinness.
• Toucan Brew was introduced in May 2006. It was named after the cartoon toucan used in many Guinness advertisements. This beer had a crisper taste with a slightly sweet aftertaste due to its triple-hopped brewing process.
• North Star was introduced in October 2006 and sold until into late 2007. Three million pints of North Star were sold in the latter half of 2007.
• Despite an announcement in June 2007 that the fourth Brewhouse stout would be launched in October that year, no new beer appeared and, at the end of 2007, the Brewhouse series appeared to have been quietly cancelled.

• In March 2006, Guinness introduced the "surger" in Britain. The surger is a plate-like electrical device meant for the home. It sends ultrasonic waves through a Guinness-filled pint glass to recreate the beer's "surge and settle" effect. The device works in conjunction with special cans of surger-ready Guinness. Guinness tried out a primitive version of this system in 1977 in New York. The idea was abandoned until 2003, when it began testing the surger in Japanese bars, most of which are too small to accommodate traditional keg-and-tap systems. Since then, the surger has been introduced to bars all across the quadrant.

• Withdrawn Guinness variants include Guinness's Brite Lager, Guinness's Brite Ale, Guinness Light, Guinness XXX Extra Strong Stout, Guinness Cream Stout, Guinness Gold, Guinness Pilsner, Guinness Breó (a slightly citrusy wheat beer), Guinness Shandy, and Guinness Special Light.

Breó (meaning 'glow' in ancient Irish) was a wheat beer; it cost around 5 million Irish punts to develop.

• For a short time in the late 1990s, Guinness produced the "St James's Gate" range of craft-style beers, available in a small number of Dublin pubs. The beers were: Pilsner Gold, Wicked Red Ale, Wildcat Wheat Beer and Dark Angel Lager.

• A brewing byproduct of Guinness, Guinness Yeast Extract (GYE), was produced until the 1950s.

• In March 2010, Guinness began test marketing Guinness Black Lager, a new black lager, in Northern Ireland and Malaysia.

Pouring and serving

What Diageo calls the "perfect pint" of Draught Guinness is the product of a lengthy "double pour", which according to the company should take 119.53 seconds. Guinness has promoted this wait with advertising campaigns such as "good things come to those who wait". Draught Guinness should be served at 6°C (42.8°F), while Extra Cold Guinness should be served at 3.5°C (38.6°F).

Ideally a pint of Guinness should be served in a slightly tulip shaped pint glass as opposed to the taller European tulip glass or 'Nonic' glass which contains a ridge approx 3/4 of the way up the glass. On the way to the tap, the beer is passed through a chiller and is forced through a five-hole disc restrictor plate in the end of the tap, which increases the fluid pressure and friction, forcing the creation of small bubbles which form a creamy head. The glass is then rested until the initial pour settles, and the remainder of the glass is then filled with a slow pour until the head forms a slight dome over the top of the glass. Some bartenders also draw a simple design, using the flow of Guinness from the head of the tap, such as a shamrock in the head during the slow pour.

This tradition comes from when Guinness was served from the cask, and initially older beer was poured into a glass until it was 3/4 full, then left to stand. When ordered by the customer, the glass was topped up from younger, gassier beer, producing the traditional head. As the beer is no longer blended from different ages of beer, the double pour is no longer required for the mixing of beers but is still maintained as it produces a better pint as the head does not over fill the glass and need to be discarded.

Canned Draught Guinness should be poured into a large glass in one smooth action, while bottled Draught Guinness should be drunk straight from the bottle.

Sinking bubbles

A long time subject of bar conversations is the Guinness cascade, where the gas bubbles appear to travel downwards in a pint glass of Guinness.

The effect is attributed to drag; bubbles that touch the walls of a glass are slowed in their travel upwards. Bubbles in the centre of the glass are, however, free to rise to the surface, and thus form a rising column of bubbles. The rising bubbles create a current by the entrainment of the surrounding fluid. As beer rises in the centre, the beer near the outside of the glass falls. This downward flow pushes the bubbles near the glass towards the bottom. Although the effect occurs in any liquid, it is particularly noticeable in any dark nitrogen stout, as the drink combines dark-coloured liquid and light-coloured bubbles.

Guinness is served at the Traditional Irish Pub, The County Cork located on the promenade of Starbase 989.

"It is the best Draught Guinness anyplace in the Quadrant, with the obvious exception of that served in Ireland."

-Lieutenant Eian O'Neill