Well it hasn't been in this country(United States) since before prohibition but now it's back. Guinness Foreign Extra Stout (GFES) has been reintroduced to America as of October 2010.
I'll start with the bottle and packaging. The traditional packaging of Guinness is black trimmed with gold, an elegant Irish harp and Arthur Guinness' signature. There's a lot more yellow in the new packaging than in the standard Guinness, the Extra Stout or draught bottles. It would be interesting to see what the bottles were like at the turn of the century(mental note to find this out later). I didn't like the new look at first, and still don't. There's something about a black bottle that says I am like no other beer. It's like the punk rock of beer. The label is bold, though, and touts 'Genuine Quality Stout' which I certainly appreciate.
On to the beer itself.The first thing you notice is the higher alcohol content. It packs a punch and is as bold as you would expect. It has a slightly sweeter taste than Extra Stout. It reminds me of some barley wines I've drank. I love the dark chocolaty bitter of Extra Stout and this slightly sweeter taste threw me off a bit at first. I'm not sure if it's just the the higher alcohol or something in the ingredients. I figure after five or six it ain't much gonna matter anyway!
At first taste I must say I was disappointed. That bitter black Extra Stout is hard to beat but after a day and a half of drinking GFES I must say it's a close race. Maybe a side by side taste test is in order? I'm even liking the label a little bit better. That yellow is pretty bold. GFES is a very drinkable beer....Any other thoughts? Oh yeah...um... I almost forgot...bodhrans and dots suck!
For some reason I find the Extra Stout sold in bottles here is terrible, the canned version and especially draft from a bar taste better, I don't know why. It just isn't good from a bottle, and pouring the bottle into a glass doesn't help, though pouring the canned version into a glass is good.
So the bottle packaging worries me a bit. But I'll have a go at it when I come across some.
Is draught Guinness in Ireland still the same delectable drink it was in the late Seventies / early Eighties, unchanged with the passage of time?
I heard (rather, I hope I misheard) an ugly rumour to the effect that the Guinness in Ireland was now just the same as the standard Guinness in England, which has always been about as appealing as chilly coke washings.
Well, the "standard english" Guinness has been imported from Dublin for a number of years now - it used to come from the Peak Royal brewery in West London, and not only did I used to know someone who worked there 40 years ago, and he was a Welshman ( was that why it wasn't as good ? ) but my band was once booked to play for the staff social club there, but it was cancelled owing to lack of ticket sales - yes, they couldn't hold a booze-up in a brewery !
I thought that particular form of diesel - about 8% is it? - is brewed in Nigeria, under license. Blows the arse out of yer trousers for sure.
And yes, most bodhrans suck, but spoons are even worse, big time.
Guiness in cans and draught is all made in Ireland on the same pot where the founder started in 1750 or so. Bottled Guinness is made under license all over the world. If you get Guinness draught anywhere in the world, it was shipped there.
Interesting that Guinness is technically a light beer (unless you are American ): it has 4.3% alc/vol. Remarkable that such a "light" beer has such a strong flavour.
Ah, Guinness -- take a mediocre product and bombard the country with a relentless marketing campaign to convince us that it is good and drive out the competition, add the cost of the advertising to the sale price so that the people you are brainwashing bear the cost of being brainwashed, then sit back and rake in the profits. And keep a team of lawyers handy to protect your family and your by now massive estate
Ha ha, gam, tiz true but I quite like a good pint of the black stuff on occasion. Your post reminds me of the Harp adds during the big marketing drive on the mainland of the 70's 80's (stays sharp to the bottom of the glass, boom boom). It really was crap, all fur coat, nae knickers .
But wind the clock forward to the mid 90's when I was temporarily based in Antrim on and off for couple of years. The local pub did Harp in big bottles chilled. Not my normal tipple but being in a bottle I could get it on tap when the rounds got crazy, saving me a drunken stagger home and saving a few drinks behind the bar for next time (at one point during my stay in that village every bottle in the pub was apparently mine due to my inability to keep up).
Anyway I came to the conclusion that if the very stuff I was drinking in Antrim (brewed in Dublin) had been sold on the mainland during the big marketing campaign, instead of the UK brewed pish they were peddling, things may well have turned out differently. The Guinness family didn't add many acres to the pile on the back of Harp despite the real stuff being a mighty fine example of the brewers craft.
Mine was the last pub in Sunderland to sell Guinness in the old half-inch line and it had a very good reputation. Still Guinness insisted on changing it to the micro-bore chilled dispenser so that they could increase their profits. Chilled=less waste / no taste. Amazing the rubbish people will drink when it's cold. The beer came supplied in 11-gallon kegs, but they wanted profit from 12 gallons. Hence the huge head. Oh how the money rolls in.
There's an old joke - why do Americans drink their beer cold? So they don't taste it.
Guinness is not by any means a great stout in my book, but what I get at Tommy Doyle's is at least drinkable.
The problem I have with their relentless marketing is that it more or less means that an "Irish" pub in the states will have one stout available, and it'll be Guinness. That's unfortunate, because the same pub might easily have a good assortment of other styles, including some local stuff. There are some good stouts and porters made in the US, but you'll have no luck finding them in Irish-flavored bars.
Guiness is nice if you drop a shot of Tia Maria liqueur into a half pint of it. Tastes even more like milkshake!
There are loads of great stouts and porters brewed here in the UK that I will take any time over Guiness. I can't remember the last time I had a Guiness except when out on a serious bender and dropping Tia Maria into it as above, and that was a good few years ago. It's not bad, but it's a bit bland and if I must drink something so stupendously high in calories I want a bit of flavour too.
Rogue Brewery's Shakespeare Stout was always a good one, when I was drinking at the Horse Brass. For a laugh, we used to ask the barman to shoot a bit of the Lindemann's Kriek on top of it for a "Lambic Pentameter".
One time, he actually did it. Turns out, it tasted pretty good!
Speaking of beer, there's a brewery in Northern Ireland running a "Battle of the Bands" contest in which one of the five finalists is a trad group. They're neck and neck with an Irish rock band, with the other three groups far behind. Voting until Tuesday Dec 14 at: http://www.slbc.ie/competition/competitions
Surprisingly, this brewery (Strangford Lough) doesn't offer a stout.
We used to do something called 'baby guinness'. It was a Tia Maria in a sherry glass with a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream floated on the top. Mmmm. Nice Christmas drink.
At uni we used to do "Irish Car Bombs" where we would drop a shot glass of Baileys into about 2/3 of a pint of Guinness. Then you had to down it in about five seconds or it would curdle. It was pretty gross.
Except that his fiddling is pretty mediocre, even before he starts pogoing. I think the low Es sound pretty badly flat and the version is pared down to leave out anything that might be hard to play. No comparison to any of the great Canadian dancing fiddlers.
As far as stout or barley wines go my favorite one is Mephistopheles brewed in Boulder. It's a little too expensive for me here on the east coast. Guinness Extra Stout is the best alternative for me so when I saw Foreign Extra was finaly comming to the US I thought I'd give it a try. As far as the regular Guinness, I've never liked it as it was too week a beer for me.
Being a brewer, I can assure you that there is far more variety in the US now than there was 30 yrs ago. In fact, with Budweiser (and other brands aspiring to "taste" like Bud/Miller/Coors) becoming the most "popular" beer in the world (NOT just the US), US microbreweries are leading the way in brewing the old traditional styles . . . and sometimes not-so-traditional but plain awesome ales & lagers!
Some of the old jokes about US beer just don't apply anymore. And Canadians making fun of US beer, that's just stupid. The old joke used to be "Canadians making fun of the US beer is like the "F" student making fun of the mentally disabled kid." Again, with revival of craft brewing in the US, there are far more styles & flavors available here than anywhere else in the world.
As far as Guinness goes, they have so many different sub-styles with the same name:
Guinness Draught (in a can)
Guinness Draught (in a bottle)
Guinness (on draught)
Guinness Extra Stout
Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Guinness Special Extra Stout
etc. Ordering in a pub will likely get you the right one, but you're going to the local liquor store you have to make sure that you pick the right one for your tastes.
Another example of the liberties that marketing people take: draught means drawn (from the wood) so it is impossible to have draught canned beer. But it sounds good, so they do it.
Boy howdy those battle of the bands that show up on this site are something else, or maybe it's all the same one, they all sound the same, again, except Girsa.
I'm glad Guinness is making lots of money. They've been at it a long time and make a product that people want. As far as I know they aren't doing anything illegal or evil. I've also heard, but have no first hand knowledge, that they were and are a fair company to work for.
"As far as I know they aren't doing anything illegal or evil."
Difficult to refute that, isn't it? Well, if one doesn't want the lawyers baying at the door. And it wouldn't be possible to say if, for instance, one's work in the past meant that one knew that that wasn't always the case, whatever the situation now.
The most expensive criminal trial in British legal history followed by an unprecedented and miraculous cure for dementia, previously used as the excuse to let the main culprit off scot free. I wonder how clean they are now ...
Guinness (owned by Diageo) have some crappy, big-school marketing and business gimmickry. But their nitrogen-inject system (for cans) is really cool (best non-tap "draught" I have had).
The problem with beer is that, unlike wine, it is best fresh. Perhaps in-Ireland draught Guinness "tastes better" because it is literally days from the tank, not weeks or months like the stuff they ship is.
In the US, there are LOADS of excellent microbreweries and brew pubs, non-"Irish," that brew fine stouts. Pretty much every microbrewery, AAMOF, will make both a stout and a porter, and sometimes a seasonal beer (e.g. Imperial stout, or a dry "light" stout a la Guinness). When I have been at sessions in the US, I make a point of trying (a) any free beer, or (b) whatever is local, which is usually excellent. The American microbrewers don't have to support massive marketing campaigns, and they are close to their consumers, and many don't bottle but go right to keg/growler, so there is a real emphasis on quality and innovation. Also, not bottling massively reduces costs and scale.
"They've been at it a long time and make a product that people want." This is exactly my point: their extremely expensive marketing campaign, for which you the customer pays, is what leads you to want it. All the alternatives have been wiped away. This is like saying people want the sort of food that gets slopped up at burger joints. Have you ever tasted a real burger?
The very first summer job I had was working for a small soft drinks producer and bottling plant as an orders and delivery clerk, though, once they discovered I could drive, I spent much of my time making deliveries to assorted country pubs and Miners' Welfare Clubs (and, in those days, many of the other deliveries were still made by horse and cart). Friday was the key day of the week since it was then that the Guinness tanker would arrive. It was the firm's tradition that everyone would sample the newly-arrived porter to determine whether it was fit to bottle. Even though I wasn't old enough to buy beer in a pub legally, I was involved in that process. I was only allowed to have one glass (because I was young and probably driving later), but some of my other co-workers seemed to take an age and several glasses before they affirmed that the brew was fit to bottle!
To correct gam (and others), Guinness hasn't been a draught brew for a very long time since it's a gas-supported keg beverage, not one hand-drawn from the wood (and much the worse for it).
I've tasted many many stouts as well as porters and barley wines. Guinness Extra Stout is still one of my favorite. Maybe you're saying I have bad taste? Could be...fast food-no thanks. That's nasty stuff and a nasty business.
Favorite Stout this year - Vanilla in Manilla from Brown Cow Brewery, Selby, North Yorkshire, UK. 5.1% - bloody gorgeous but you will have to try hard to find it though.
Lee "Scratch" Perry's endorsement is proof that Guinness represents everything that is good and nothing that is bad. Drink Guinness Extraterrestrial Extra Stout to crumble all the evil brains. "Love Guinness and live, hate Guinness and die"
I can't remember whether it was the Pyrex glass factory or the local Sunderland Glass works (now defunct) where a friend of mine worked. He told me that someone came round twice a day with buckets of Guinness and they just scooped out what they wanted with their enamel mugs. They were sweating so much they would have dehydrated without liquids, but I don't think Health and Safety would be impressed now what with all that molten glass being waved about.
Well Its true what they say about Guinness - '' It dose not travel well '' - For I was down in Dublin and after my first taste of the first pint, all I could think and say was - WOW !
And Saturday at our session I had another very nice Pint of Guinness, by Northern standard's - But well it just did not cut the old mustered board compared to the Dublin one - lol...
I read this in 2008 when I visited Ireland. Guinness sold in Nigeria was higher in alcohol and thus had a stronger flavor than "regular" Guinness. When some Nigerians came to Ireland to work they were appalled at the weak Guinness. So Guinness began providing the "high test" brew for the Nigerian market in Ireland.
As a long time Guinness drinker going back to the 1960s, my take on it is this. Guinness is now owned by Diageo, a major non-Irish corporation. Like any corporate beer, it is now brewed in over 50 breweries around the world to a standard of mediocrity that is geared to not offend the average drinker and so that it tastes the same everywhere. Like some of the other posters, I much prefer microbrewery stouts and porters and ales in the US. If you are in Dublin, I highly recommend the Wrasslers 4x stout at the Porterhouse brew pub. Much tastier than Guinness.
But, in the spirit of honesty, I still drink Guinness when available at sessions if only for the tradition. It is not great, but it tastes OK and it comes in bigger glasses and has a bit lower alcohol content. I find that if I keep to about 1 pint an hour it helps me get to just the right level of relaxation without being drunk and loosing coordination. In general, I prefer India Pale Ale and other really hoppy brews.
" ...still drink Guinness...if only for the tradition." Got it in one. I don't suppose you know about the tradition that everyone in the country sends me a quid every time they fancy a drink. (Didn't think so. Must do more advertising...)
Guinness was the safety net booze in the days when Cornwall and Devon were beer-deserts (pint of Devenish, anyone? ). As that's no longer the case, and we now have superb local breweries such as Dartmoor, Otter and Sharp's, there's no excuse for supping Guinness round here these days. As it's quite low in hops, it's less "good for you" than most good cask bitters - it relies far more on those dark, burnt malt flavours for its "hit." I'm not saying I don't like it, but there's invariably something far more attractive on offer in pubs these days.
Wherever Guiness is brewed (outside Ireland) it is doen to Guiness' specifications. The reason bottled Guinness often tastes badly (well, not as good as the draught stuff) is because
a) Guinness has no control over how long it sits around (beer is best FRESH)
b) You can't bottle Guinness with their nitrogen process- you can only add nitrogen to draught kegs and the canned stuff.
(Nitrogen has a much smaller bublle size, and gives beer a creamy mouth-feel-- a pub must have a special nitrogen dispenser to serve Guinness and other similar stouts).
Regarding the hops content, all stouts are brewed with only first-immersion hops (hops are added at start of wort boil; nothing is addedat the end). Any "good stuff" e.g. micronutrients (vitamins) will be destroyed by the brewing process, in which the wort must be boiled. In a lighter beer (e.g. IPA) there will be some-- but very little-- fresh hop content because these beers are brewed with finishing hops.
If you are ever in Western Canada, you MUST try Cranog Brewery's stout-- the best dry stout I have ever had, but a kick up (5.1%) in the alcohol dept.
I think we're (sadly) all agreed then, that Big G is no longer qualifying to be drunk in a Real Ale pub. Who's going to be the first to write, preferably in "G", "The Farewell to Guiness Reel"?
Whether it's still the case I don't know, but bottled Guinness used to be bottle-conditioned, i.e. not pasteurised and with a natural yeast deposit (which, unlike other bottle-conditioned beers, you wouldn't notice due to the dark colour of the brew). That would make it taste markedly different to the draught, as pasteurisation drastically affects the flavour of beer. Try as I might, and I did, I could never fall in love with bottled Guinness.
My advice is to drink Sharp's Doom Bar whenever you find it.
Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Well it hasn't been in this country(United States) since before prohibition but now it's back. Guinness Foreign Extra Stout (GFES) has been reintroduced to America as of October 2010.
I'll start with the bottle and packaging. The traditional packaging of Guinness is black trimmed with gold, an elegant Irish harp and Arthur Guinness' signature. There's a lot more yellow in the new packaging than in the standard Guinness, the Extra Stout or draught bottles. It would be interesting to see what the bottles were like at the turn of the century(mental note to find this out later). I didn't like the new look at first, and still don't. There's something about a black bottle that says I am like no other beer. It's like the punk rock of beer. The label is bold, though, and touts 'Genuine Quality Stout' which I certainly appreciate.
On to the beer itself.The first thing you notice is the higher alcohol content. It packs a punch and is as bold as you would expect. It has a slightly sweeter taste than Extra Stout. It reminds me of some barley wines I've drank. I love the dark chocolaty bitter of Extra Stout and this slightly sweeter taste threw me off a bit at first. I'm not sure if it's just the the higher alcohol or something in the ingredients. I figure after five or six it ain't much gonna matter anyway!
At first taste I must say I was disappointed. That bitter black Extra Stout is hard to beat but after a day and a half of drinking GFES I must say it's a close race. Maybe a side by side taste test is in order? I'm even liking the label a little bit better. That yellow is pretty bold. GFES is a very drinkable beer....Any other thoughts? Oh yeah...um... I almost forgot...bodhrans and dots suck!
# Posted on December 11th 2010 by shanty
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
I'll have to try that.
For some reason I find the Extra Stout sold in bottles here is terrible, the canned version and especially draft from a bar taste better, I don't know why. It just isn't good from a bottle, and pouring the bottle into a glass doesn't help, though pouring the canned version into a glass is good.
So the bottle packaging worries me a bit. But I'll have a go at it when I come across some.
# Posted on December 11th 2010 by Marklar
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Is draught Guinness in Ireland still the same delectable drink it was in the late Seventies / early Eighties, unchanged with the passage of time?
I heard (rather, I hope I misheard) an ugly rumour to the effect that the Guinness in Ireland was now just the same as the standard Guinness in England, which has always been about as appealing as chilly coke washings.
Maybe some reader will enlighten me on this one.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by nicholas
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Well, the "standard english" Guinness has been imported from Dublin for a number of years now - it used to come from the Peak Royal brewery in West London, and not only did I used to know someone who worked there 40 years ago, and he was a Welshman ( was that why it wasn't as good ? ) but my band was once booked to play for the staff social club there, but it was cancelled owing to lack of ticket sales - yes, they couldn't hold a booze-up in a brewery !
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by Guernsey Pete
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
I thought that particular form of diesel - about 8% is it? - is brewed in Nigeria, under license. Blows the arse out of yer trousers for sure.
And yes, most bodhrans suck, but spoons are even worse, big time.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by Rudall the time
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
If anyone runs across Drake's dry stout give it a try. Guinness -like, but I think I prefer it to Guinness, at least here in the states.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by leoj
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Guiness in cans and draught is all made in Ireland on the same pot where the founder started in 1750 or so. Bottled Guinness is made under license all over the world. If you get Guinness draught anywhere in the world, it was shipped there.
): it has 4.3% alc/vol. Remarkable that such a "light" beer has such a strong flavour.
Interesting that Guinness is technically a light beer (unless you are American
If you want to geek out about Guiness, read this:
http://www.byo.com/stories/beer-styles/article/indices/11-beer-styles/1458-stout-hearted-in-ireland
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by chris stolz
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Ah, Guinness -- take a mediocre product and bombard the country with a relentless marketing campaign to convince us that it is good and drive out the competition, add the cost of the advertising to the sale price so that the people you are brainwashing bear the cost of being brainwashed, then sit back and rake in the profits. And keep a team of lawyers handy to protect your family and your by now massive estate
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by gam
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Ha ha, gam, tiz true but I quite like a good pint of the black stuff on occasion. Your post reminds me of the Harp adds during the big marketing drive on the mainland of the 70's 80's (stays sharp to the bottom of the glass, boom boom). It really was crap, all fur coat, nae knickers .
But wind the clock forward to the mid 90's when I was temporarily based in Antrim on and off for couple of years. The local pub did Harp in big bottles chilled. Not my normal tipple but being in a bottle I could get it on tap when the rounds got crazy, saving me a drunken stagger home and saving a few drinks behind the bar for next time (at one point during my stay in that village every bottle in the pub was apparently mine due to my inability to keep up).
Anyway I came to the conclusion that if the very stuff I was drinking in Antrim (brewed in Dublin) had been sold on the mainland during the big marketing campaign, instead of the UK brewed pish they were peddling, things may well have turned out differently. The Guinness family didn't add many acres to the pile on the back of Harp despite the real stuff being a mighty fine example of the brewers craft.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by Solidmahog
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Mine was the last pub in Sunderland to sell Guinness in the old half-inch line and it had a very good reputation. Still Guinness insisted on changing it to the micro-bore chilled dispenser so that they could increase their profits. Chilled=less waste / no taste. Amazing the rubbish people will drink when it's cold. The beer came supplied in 11-gallon kegs, but they wanted profit from 12 gallons. Hence the huge head. Oh how the money rolls in.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by gam
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
There's an old joke - why do Americans drink their beer cold? So they don't taste it.
Guinness is not by any means a great stout in my book, but what I get at Tommy Doyle's is at least drinkable.
The problem I have with their relentless marketing is that it more or less means that an "Irish" pub in the states will have one stout available, and it'll be Guinness. That's unfortunate, because the same pub might easily have a good assortment of other styles, including some local stuff. There are some good stouts and porters made in the US, but you'll have no luck finding them in Irish-flavored bars.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Tastes like chocolate milk.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by sara505sings
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Guiness is nice if you drop a shot of Tia Maria liqueur into a half pint of it. Tastes even more like milkshake!
There are loads of great stouts and porters brewed here in the UK that I will take any time over Guiness. I can't remember the last time I had a Guiness except when out on a serious bender and dropping Tia Maria into it as above, and that was a good few years ago. It's not bad, but it's a bit bland and if I must drink something so stupendously high in calories I want a bit of flavour too.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by Red Menace
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Rogue Brewery's Shakespeare Stout was always a good one, when I was drinking at the Horse Brass. For a laugh, we used to ask the barman to shoot a bit of the Lindemann's Kriek on top of it for a "Lambic Pentameter".
One time, he actually did it. Turns out, it tasted pretty good!
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Speaking of beer, there's a brewery in Northern Ireland running a "Battle of the Bands" contest in which one of the five finalists is a trad group. They're neck and neck with an Irish rock band, with the other three groups far behind. Voting until Tuesday Dec 14 at:
http://www.slbc.ie/competition/competitions
Surprisingly, this brewery (Strangford Lough) doesn't offer a stout.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by GaryAMartin
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
GaryAMartin - to be fair you can't fault a band where the fiddler can fiddle and pogo at the same time.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by Red Menace
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
We used to do something called 'baby guinness'. It was a Tia Maria in a sherry glass with a shot of Bailey's Irish Cream floated on the top. Mmmm. Nice Christmas drink.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by gam
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
At uni we used to do "Irish Car Bombs" where we would drop a shot glass of Baileys into about 2/3 of a pint of Guinness. Then you had to down it in about five seconds or it would curdle. It was pretty gross.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by DrSilverSpear
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Not a bad bit of box playing on that clip from Girsa, but why was the other one pounding on that old packing crate?
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by Jon Kiparsky
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Except that his fiddling is pretty mediocre, even before he starts pogoing. I think the low Es sound pretty badly flat and the version is pared down to leave out anything that might be hard to play. No comparison to any of the great Canadian dancing fiddlers.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by GaryAMartin
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
As far as stout or barley wines go my favorite one is Mephistopheles brewed in Boulder. It's a little too expensive for me here on the east coast. Guinness Extra Stout is the best alternative for me so when I saw Foreign Extra was finaly comming to the US I thought I'd give it a try. As far as the regular Guinness, I've never liked it as it was too week a beer for me.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by shanty
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Being a brewer, I can assure you that there is far more variety in the US now than there was 30 yrs ago. In fact, with Budweiser (and other brands aspiring to "taste" like Bud/Miller/Coors) becoming the most "popular" beer in the world (NOT just the US), US microbreweries are leading the way in brewing the old traditional styles . . . and sometimes not-so-traditional but plain awesome ales & lagers!
Some of the old jokes about US beer just don't apply anymore. And Canadians making fun of US beer, that's just stupid. The old joke used to be "Canadians making fun of the US beer is like the "F" student making fun of the mentally disabled kid." Again, with revival of craft brewing in the US, there are far more styles & flavors available here than anywhere else in the world.
As far as Guinness goes, they have so many different sub-styles with the same name:
Guinness Draught (in a can)
Guinness Draught (in a bottle)
Guinness (on draught)
Guinness Extra Stout
Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Guinness Special Extra Stout
etc. Ordering in a pub will likely get you the right one, but you're going to the local liquor store you have to make sure that you pick the right one for your tastes.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by juniper
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Another example of the liberties that marketing people take: draught means drawn (from the wood) so it is impossible to have draught canned beer. But it sounds good, so they do it.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by gam
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Boy howdy those battle of the bands that show up on this site are something else, or maybe it's all the same one, they all sound the same, again, except Girsa.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by shanty
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
I'm glad Guinness is making lots of money. They've been at it a long time and make a product that people want. As far as I know they aren't doing anything illegal or evil. I've also heard, but have no first hand knowledge, that they were and are a fair company to work for.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by shanty
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
"As far as I know they aren't doing anything illegal or evil."
Difficult to refute that, isn't it? Well, if one doesn't want the lawyers baying at the door. And it wouldn't be possible to say if, for instance, one's work in the past meant that one knew that that wasn't always the case, whatever the situation now.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Que?
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by shanty
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
The most expensive criminal trial in British legal history followed by an unprecedented and miraculous cure for dementia, previously used as the excuse to let the main culprit off scot free. I wonder how clean they are now ...
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by ethical blend
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Guinness (owned by Diageo) have some crappy, big-school marketing and business gimmickry. But their nitrogen-inject system (for cans) is really cool (best non-tap "draught" I have had).
The problem with beer is that, unlike wine, it is best fresh. Perhaps in-Ireland draught Guinness "tastes better" because it is literally days from the tank, not weeks or months like the stuff they ship is.
In the US, there are LOADS of excellent microbreweries and brew pubs, non-"Irish," that brew fine stouts. Pretty much every microbrewery, AAMOF, will make both a stout and a porter, and sometimes a seasonal beer (e.g. Imperial stout, or a dry "light" stout a la Guinness). When I have been at sessions in the US, I make a point of trying (a) any free beer, or (b) whatever is local, which is usually excellent. The American microbrewers don't have to support massive marketing campaigns, and they are close to their consumers, and many don't bottle but go right to keg/growler, so there is a real emphasis on quality and innovation. Also, not bottling massively reduces costs and scale.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by chris stolz
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
http://abcnews.go.com/Business/story?id=88129&tqkw=&tqshow=&page=1
sounds like a nice way to lose a job. In America they lock the door and tell you to get your sh*t and get out!
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by shanty
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
"They've been at it a long time and make a product that people want." This is exactly my point: their extremely expensive marketing campaign, for which you the customer pays, is what leads you to want it. All the alternatives have been wiped away. This is like saying people want the sort of food that gets slopped up at burger joints. Have you ever tasted a real burger?
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by gam
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
The very first summer job I had was working for a small soft drinks producer and bottling plant as an orders and delivery clerk, though, once they discovered I could drive, I spent much of my time making deliveries to assorted country pubs and Miners' Welfare Clubs (and, in those days, many of the other deliveries were still made by horse and cart). Friday was the key day of the week since it was then that the Guinness tanker would arrive. It was the firm's tradition that everyone would sample the newly-arrived porter to determine whether it was fit to bottle. Even though I wasn't old enough to buy beer in a pub legally, I was involved in that process. I was only allowed to have one glass (because I was young and probably driving later), but some of my other co-workers seemed to take an age and several glasses before they affirmed that the brew was fit to bottle!
To correct gam (and others), Guinness hasn't been a draught brew for a very long time since it's a gas-supported keg beverage, not one hand-drawn from the wood (and much the worse for it).
Anyone interested in some of the local brews produced in Ireland would be well advised to visit http://www.europeanbeerguide.net/irlbrew.htm.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by MacCruiskeen
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
I've tasted many many stouts as well as porters and barley wines. Guinness Extra Stout is still one of my favorite. Maybe you're saying I have bad taste?
Could be...fast food-no thanks. That's nasty stuff and a nasty business.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by shanty
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Shanty-- great story. The brewery said Budweiser is a "premium beer." ha
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by chris stolz
Re: Best Stout 2010
Favorite Stout this year - Vanilla in Manilla from Brown Cow Brewery, Selby, North Yorkshire, UK. 5.1% - bloody gorgeous but you will have to try hard to find it though.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by geoffwright
Guinness is Irie
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ENnFjxHzdIw
Lee "Scratch" Perry's endorsement is proof that Guinness represents everything that is good and nothing that is bad. Drink Guinness Extraterrestrial Extra Stout to crumble all the evil brains. "Love Guinness and live, hate Guinness and die"
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by Dzia Dzia
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
I can't remember whether it was the Pyrex glass factory or the local Sunderland Glass works (now defunct) where a friend of mine worked. He told me that someone came round twice a day with buckets of Guinness and they just scooped out what they wanted with their enamel mugs. They were sweating so much they would have dehydrated without liquids, but I don't think Health and Safety would be impressed now what with all that molten glass being waved about.
# Posted on December 12th 2010 by gam
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Sam Smith's (home of Humphrey) do an excellent Stout, in my (probably solo) opinion. I much prefer it to the current brewing of Guinness.
# Posted on December 13th 2010 by Ebor_fiddler
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
What about Guiness punch, then?
# Posted on December 13th 2010 by Bob himself
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Well Its true what they say about Guinness - '' It dose not travel well '' - For I was down in Dublin and after my first taste of the first pint, all I could think and say was - WOW !
And Saturday at our session I had another very nice Pint of Guinness, by Northern standard's - But well it just did not cut the old mustered board compared to the Dublin one - lol...
jim,,,
# Posted on December 13th 2010 by FIDDLE4
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
A pogoing fiddler is like a dog playing the piano. I'm fairly impressed he's doing it at all - I never said he was any good!
I really fancy trying one of those "baby guinness" coctails. Hmm, I've got a bottle of Baileys in the kitchen...
# Posted on December 13th 2010 by Red Menace
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
I read this in 2008 when I visited Ireland. Guinness sold in Nigeria was higher in alcohol and thus had a stronger flavor than "regular" Guinness. When some Nigerians came to Ireland to work they were appalled at the weak Guinness. So Guinness began providing the "high test" brew for the Nigerian market in Ireland.
As a long time Guinness drinker going back to the 1960s, my take on it is this. Guinness is now owned by Diageo, a major non-Irish corporation. Like any corporate beer, it is now brewed in over 50 breweries around the world to a standard of mediocrity that is geared to not offend the average drinker and so that it tastes the same everywhere. Like some of the other posters, I much prefer microbrewery stouts and porters and ales in the US. If you are in Dublin, I highly recommend the Wrasslers 4x stout at the Porterhouse brew pub. Much tastier than Guinness.
But, in the spirit of honesty, I still drink Guinness when available at sessions if only for the tradition. It is not great, but it tastes OK and it comes in bigger glasses and has a bit lower alcohol content. I find that if I keep to about 1 pint an hour it helps me get to just the right level of relaxation without being drunk and loosing coordination. In general, I prefer India Pale Ale and other really hoppy brews.
# Posted on December 13th 2010 by John Conoboy
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
" ...still drink Guinness...if only for the tradition." Got it in one. I don't suppose you know about the tradition that everyone in the country sends me a quid every time they fancy a drink. (Didn't think so. Must do more advertising...)
# Posted on December 13th 2010 by gam
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Guinness was the safety net booze in the days when Cornwall and Devon were beer-deserts (pint of Devenish, anyone?
). As that's no longer the case, and we now have superb local breweries such as Dartmoor, Otter and Sharp's, there's no excuse for supping Guinness round here these days. As it's quite low in hops, it's less "good for you" than most good cask bitters - it relies far more on those dark, burnt malt flavours for its "hit." I'm not saying I don't like it, but there's invariably something far more attractive on offer in pubs these days.
# Posted on December 13th 2010 by Steve Shaw
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Conoboy--
Wherever Guiness is brewed (outside Ireland) it is doen to Guiness' specifications. The reason bottled Guinness often tastes badly (well, not as good as the draught stuff) is because
a) Guinness has no control over how long it sits around (beer is best FRESH)
b) You can't bottle Guinness with their nitrogen process- you can only add nitrogen to draught kegs and the canned stuff.
(Nitrogen has a much smaller bublle size, and gives beer a creamy mouth-feel-- a pub must have a special nitrogen dispenser to serve Guinness and other similar stouts).
Regarding the hops content, all stouts are brewed with only first-immersion hops (hops are added at start of wort boil; nothing is addedat the end). Any "good stuff" e.g. micronutrients (vitamins) will be destroyed by the brewing process, in which the wort must be boiled. In a lighter beer (e.g. IPA) there will be some-- but very little-- fresh hop content because these beers are brewed with finishing hops.
If you are ever in Western Canada, you MUST try Cranog Brewery's stout-- the best dry stout I have ever had, but a kick up (5.1%) in the alcohol dept.
# Posted on December 15th 2010 by chris stolz
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
I think we're (sadly) all agreed then, that Big G is no longer qualifying to be drunk in a Real Ale pub. Who's going to be the first to write, preferably in "G", "The Farewell to Guiness Reel"?
# Posted on December 16th 2010 by Ebor_fiddler
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Whether it's still the case I don't know, but bottled Guinness used to be bottle-conditioned, i.e. not pasteurised and with a natural yeast deposit (which, unlike other bottle-conditioned beers, you wouldn't notice due to the dark colour of the brew). That would make it taste markedly different to the draught, as pasteurisation drastically affects the flavour of beer. Try as I might, and I did, I could never fall in love with bottled Guinness.
My advice is to drink Sharp's Doom Bar whenever you find it.
# Posted on December 19th 2010 by Steve Shaw
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
My advice is to drink a Goose Island Bourbon County Brand Stout and then play the Contradiction three times fast.
# Posted on February 23rd 2011 by Johnny Chicago
Re: Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
When I worked in steel works, they had a beer canteen - 6 pints a day for melting shop workers.
# Posted on March 17th 2011 by geoffwright