# Guinness Draught Vs Invalid Stout



## Truman42 (20/3/12)

Never really been a stout drinker before until I started to HB, but then again I didnt really drink any fancy beers until I started to HB. Now I cant drink anything that isnt at least $4.00 a stubbie and above.

So last night the wife and I go to the Baxter tavern for dinner and I order us a Guinness draught each. It had a nice creamy head followed by a very bland tasting watery beer that really lacked flavour. I was quite surprised as I expected more.
So then we tried an Abbotsford Invalid stout and this really blew me away. For a CUB mass produced beer this was very nice, and had a nice chocolaty toffee flavour. If it werent labelled I could easily think I was drinking a HB. 
Im sure some of you will disagree but this is certainly my most enjoyable CUB offering


----------



## iralosavic (20/3/12)

Truman said:


> Never really been a stout drinker before until I started to HB, but then again I didnt really drink any fancy beers until I started to HB. Now I cant drink anything that isnt at least $4.00 a stubbie and above.
> 
> So last night the wife and I go to the Baxter tavern for dinner and I order us a Guinness draught each. It had a nice creamy head followed by a very bland tasting watery beer that really lacked flavour. I was quite surprised as I expected more.
> So then we tried an Abbotsford Invalid stout and this really blew me away. For a CUB mass produced beer this was very nice, and had a nice chocolaty toffee flavour. If it werent labelled I could easily think I was drinking a HB.
> Im sure some of you will disagree but this is certainly my most enjoyable CUB offering



I think Guiness/Murphys etc are good when you drink them after a lager or something more light bodied. I find guiness is pretty easy to smash down on a hot day, when a decently complicated/chewy stout is completely out of place in all but cold weather/after dark. I quite like the Invalid - it's been around for ages - perhaps from back when people had standards.


----------



## jbowers (20/3/12)

I always have a chuckle when people tout guinness as a 'meal in a glass'. A very unsatisfying, and certainly not filling, beer. The flavour profile is quite awful, too. It's better in the UK, for sure, but the version here is a kind of insipid sweetness combined with an ashy, coarse bitterness.

On the other hand, I really like Invalid. A very good beer, in my opinion. Guinness foreign extra is also pretty good, as is Southwark (debatable, but I like it).


----------



## JaseH (20/3/12)

Invalid Stout was my staple over winter before I was brewing. Pretty decent drop for the price.


----------



## iralosavic (20/3/12)

Frothie said:


> Invalid Stout was my staple over winter before I was brewing. Pretty decent drop for the price.




The only time I ever drink Guiness nowdays is when a (food) recipe calls for it and there's leftovers.

Sometimes if I'm in Coles and in the mood, I might buy the Invalid, although I tend to reserve my stout purhcases to times when I go to Dan's. My favourite two are the Youngs Double Chocolate and the Mad Brewers Stout Noir. Both completely different, but oh so good.


----------



## felten (20/3/12)

Guiness is my go to beer when the pub is only serving megaswill, I had one a few weeks ago watching liverpool win the carling cup and it was fantastic.


----------



## iralosavic (20/3/12)

felten said:


> Guiness is my go to beer when the pub is only serving megaswill, I had one a few weeks ago watching liverpool win the carling cup and it was fantastic.



The problem I find with stouts on tap at pubs is that they serve it at the same temperature as lagers! No thanks... I buy my stouts to taste them.


----------



## muthead (20/3/12)

Whenever & Wherver you drink Guiness here it will not be good, ESPECIALLY on Tap. It is not even a close to the genuine article.

I'm from the UK and Guiness was my weapon of choice when living there and in Dublin. It's feckin outstanding.


----------



## Truman42 (20/3/12)

muthead said:


> Whenever & Wherver you drink Guiness here it will not be good, ESPECIALLY on Tap. It is not even a close to the genuine article.
> 
> I'm from the UK and Guiness was my weapon of choice when living there and in Dublin. It's feckin outstanding.



Actually this was in the can, (with those little balls inside) so I thought it might be better than on tap, but wasnt. Tasted like it had been watered down on tap though.


----------



## iralosavic (20/3/12)

Truman said:


> Actually this was in the can, (with those little balls inside) so I thought it might be better than on tap, but wasnt. Tasted like it had been watered down on tap though.



Some pubs use creamer taps for guiness, but still at lager temps.


----------



## poppa joe (20/3/12)

I bought a six pack of Guiness for Paddys Day....With the free glass.. :beerbang: 
Beer was terrible ..I would not buy the cans again... :icon_vomit: 
Shared a couple with a friend..He said ....YUCKK......
PJ


----------



## mwd (20/3/12)

Truman said:


> Actually this was in the can, (with those little balls inside) so I thought it might be better than on tap, but wasnt. Tasted like it had been watered down on tap though.




I bought a six pack for St. Pat's day with free glass and was very underwhelmed came from Dublin too. Nothing like I remember from U.K. many years ago. The canned Murphys has much more flavour have not tried the Invalid stout but the Coopers stout is not bad.


----------



## HoppingMad (20/3/12)

Guinness is built for sessioning. It's light and watery so you can smash plenty down.
It's part of the reason this brewery has been so profitable over the years because people drink loads of it and can guzzle plenty in a go. 

There's not much to a Guinness, it's really just a bunch of pale malt for the most part with a bit of flaked barley and roast barley over the top (along with that trademark sour - some say that's the brett yeast they add a little of, others suggest some sour malt when you're cloning). Take that dark grain away and you've got a pale ale really, and a very light one at that.

CUB Invalid Stout is as the name suggests - it was designed in part for invalids and the infirm to strengthen them up and as a result has a lot of sugar/ or lactose? added for energy and is a Milk Stout in style. You'll find it way sweeter than a Coopers Stout or other commercial examples.

They both have their place in the food chain/drink chain I find.  Quite like them both. Tend to grab an Invalid Stout when I can't find the Coopers.

Hopper.


----------



## iralosavic (20/3/12)

I guess due to the fact that I don't generally drink more than a couple of stouts in one sitting, I'm not particularly concerned about the lack of cheap mega-brewery stouts out there. I'm happy to pay the same for half as many craft stouts.

I also agree with the statement above concerning Guiness being for session drinking. You can't smash down a six pack of coopers stout on a cold day, but Guiness is good for it even on a hot day (assuming you've got the palate for it).


----------



## Liam_snorkel (20/3/12)

Truman said:


> Never really been a stout drinker before until I started to HB, but then again I didnt really drink any fancy beers until I started to HB. Now I cant drink anything that isnt at least $4.00 a stubbie and above.
> 
> So last night the wife and I go to the Baxter tavern for dinner and I order us a Guinness draught each. It had a nice creamy head followed by a very bland tasting watery beer that really lacked flavour. I was quite surprised as I expected more.
> So then we tried an Abbotsford Invalid stout and this really blew me away. For a CUB mass produced beer this was very nice, and had a nice chocolaty toffee flavour. If it werent labelled I could easily think I was drinking a HB.
> Im sure some of you will disagree but this is certainly my most enjoyable CUB offering


Hey keep in mind that Guinness Draught is only 4.2% hence why it's so watery and smashable.
The Guinness Extra (BUL by fosters?) which you get in stubbies is 6% and definitely not watery.


----------



## petesbrew (20/3/12)

iralosavic said:


> I guess due to the fact that I don't generally drink more than a couple of stouts in one sitting, I'm not particularly concerned about the lack of cheap mega-brewery stouts out there. I'm happy to pay the same for half as many craft stouts.
> 
> I also agree with the statement above concerning Guiness being for session drinking. You can't smash down a six pack of coopers stout on a cold day, but Guiness is good for it even on a hot day (assuming you've got the palate for it).


Agree. When you have guinness in ireland it's pretty awesome. Here, it's nothing to write home about. And yes you can smash them.
If anyone knows where to get Invalid stout in Sydney, please post.
Love Coopers Best Extra and the odd Sheaf Stout goes down well.


----------



## Bribie G (20/3/12)

Irish keg Guinness and Australian are two different beasts. The Irish is made on brown malt and the Guinness "syrup" is added prior to fermentation. Then it's fermented for around 60 hours and allowed to rise to 25C, rested for a day or so, then packaged. 

The Australian keg version is made on local malts. I'm not sure if the Guinness extract/syrup is shipped here, but either way it's brewed on a lager yeast so is a very different end result.

Here and in Ireland it's served on Nitrogen/CO2 mix which you are quite able to do yourself (Ross has a nitro setup at Bacchus) hence the creamy head.

All information available in Bill Yenne's book "Guinness, the 250 year quest for the perfect pint"

All Credit to CUB they brew some excellent FES style stouts locally such as Sheaf, Invalid and Guinness Extra 6% ABV. I always get hammered on Sheaf at least once while I'm in Sydney :beerbang:

Edit: also of possible interest, due to the long and complex argy bargy between the UK and Ireland, Guinness progressively sourced more and more of its raw materials from the USA and Europe to supplement Irish Barley (not a lot grown there) so the hops AFAIK are American as well as most of the barley for the malt. So it's a distinctly Irish brew with little or nothing in common with UK styles. They had a brewery in London from the 1930s but it closed down several years ago when Guinness moved to a greenfields site outside Dublin and took it all back into Ireland.


----------



## iralosavic (20/3/12)

Interesting info Bribie G. I guess nitrogen allows higher serving pressure? You can get pretty decent results from a creamer tap without nitrogen though, but it does mean one tap is always unsuitable for all other styles.


----------



## wakkatoo (20/3/12)

ahh, guinness.

Memories of Northern Ireland: old castles, green hills, potatoes seved 5 different ways with EVERY meal, amazing coastline and the inability to actually buy a pint......


.....cos the locals were just so damn impressed we'd flown all that way to be in their little beachside hamlet, they kept refusing to let me buy a round! :beer:

Oh, and the guinness is so completely different over there I just don't buy the aussie stuff anymore. Local is best!


----------



## iralosavic (20/3/12)

wakkatoo said:


> ahh, guinness.
> 
> Memories of Northern Ireland: old castles, green hills, potatoes seved 5 different ways with EVERY meal, amazing coastline and the inability to actually buy a pint......
> 
> ...



Sigh. I'm of Irish origins, but have never had the good fortune of visiting the homeland. Perhaps one day if my family is up for it I will get a chance to enjoy Guiness the way it should be.


----------



## sean_0 (20/3/12)

Bribie G said:


> Edit: also of possible interest, due to the long and complex argy bargy between the UK and Ireland, Guinness progressively sourced more and more of its raw materials from the USA and Europe to supplement Irish Barley (not a lot grown there) so the hops AFAIK are American as well as most of the barley for the malt. So it's a distinctly Irish brew with little or nothing in common with UK styles. They had a brewery in London from the 1930s but it closed down several years ago when Guinness moved to a greenfields site outside Dublin and took it all back into Ireland.



Hey, just a few points I might touch on. Guinness still operates from St James Gate in Dublin city. There were whispers of a move to a green field site a few years back, but I would guess that the collapse of the Irish property market circa 2008, they decided it wasn't worth it. London operations were moved into the St james gate site, which now occupies around 20Ha. There is quite a lot of brewers barley grown in Ireland ( as a % of the acreage of cereal crops), but as Guinness is one of the largest breweries in the world, and Ireland is a pretty small place, they have to import a lot. There's very little hop growing in Ireland, so they would be mostly imported too as you said.


----------



## petesbrew (20/3/12)

Ireland was fecking fantastic. Black & white pudding, little pubs, friendly people, and our first case of bedbugs courtesy of a shite B&B in Dublin. F##k those little buggers.

When I was over there (2000), Guinness had a stab at a wheat beer called Breo. 
From memory it was a very nice drop. I even got a coaster for it in my collection, along with one in spanish. Ahh beer coasters, gotta love free souvineers.


----------



## angus_grant (20/3/12)

muthead said:


> Whenever & Wherver you drink Guiness here it will not be good, ESPECIALLY on Tap. It is not even a close to the genuine article.
> 
> I'm from the UK and Guiness was my weapon of choice when living there and in Dublin. It's feckin outstanding.



I've always enjoyed a dark ale and a few stouts. I could never get into Guinness though. Just couldn't stand the taste. I played Gaelic football for three years and copped so much crap from the Irish boys about not drinking Guinness, especially on St Paddys day.

Last year I was in N Ireland with my wife, her parents, and her auntie and uncle, who is a born-and-bred Belfastian. We went to a few of his old pubs and were smashing through the Guinness' and I was really enjoying them. I had one when we got back to Brisbane and it was not even close to being the same beer. The taste had more of the extreme ends and not much balance in the middle.


----------



## pcmfisher (21/3/12)

I had a Guinness on tap the other day at a pommy club. Very disappointed. 
Had never had it before but thought it was supposed to be a good brew.
It tasted like a kit brew fermented at 29 deg.
I went back to drinking Hahn 3.5


----------



## Liam_snorkel (21/3/12)

If I could brew a kit brew at 29deg and have it taste like guinness I'd be pretty ******* stoked.


----------



## Bribie G (21/3/12)

I'm about to brew a Foreign Extra Stout at 25 degrees (with Wyeast 1084) - I'll let you know how I get on B)


----------



## Pennywise (21/3/12)

The BIL went to Ireland a few months ago, brought me back a bottle of Guiness with my name on it (from the shop at the brewery if I recall correctly). I'm not sure if it's the same as what they have on tap over there, or an export version or what ever, but it was way better than any I've had in pubs here, bottled/canned or tap. Wish he'd gotten more


----------



## evildrakey (21/3/12)

Pennywise said:


> The BIL went to Ireland a few months ago, brought me back a bottle of Guiness with my name on it (from the shop at the brewery if I recall correctly). I'm not sure if it's the same as what they have on tap over there, or an export version or what ever, but it was way better than any I've had in pubs here, bottled/canned or tap. Wish he'd gotten more



It is different to what you get in Ireland... I read somewhere that the secret to Guniness is a proportion of soured wort thats then pasturised and added back in...


----------



## bookworm1707 (21/3/12)

you can get good guinness in Australia, it is just hard to find. I have been to the Adelaide Irish club on St pats with some irish visitors and walked out because they were serving crap.
There is one pub in Adelaide that usually has the good stuff but even then I have returned a pint, the barman said I was wrong because a bunch of irish guys were drinking it and enjoying it. Funnily enough he came over a few minutes later and apologized, said the irish guys complained as well on the next round!


----------



## Liam_snorkel (21/3/12)

How do we know which is the "good" guinness? 
Do the kegs have a special little marking on them that only the Irish can read?


----------



## bookworm1707 (21/3/12)

My response would be when it tastes good! Thatis the hard part, if you have been to Ireland you will know what the good stuff tastes like, the bad stuff is worse than the cans. 

I have no idea what the difference is between the good and bad, just that there is a definite difference n


----------



## petesbrew (22/3/12)

had another Murphys can last night.
Wow, this is definitely a step up from Guinness cans.


----------



## pcmfisher (22/3/12)

Liam_snorkel said:


> If I could brew a kit brew at 29deg and have it taste like guinness I'd be pretty ******* stoked.



Well lets put it this way.
I have tasted some pretty low grade home brew that tastes better than this Guinness.

Cheers


----------



## Truman42 (22/3/12)

Tried the Mildura Brewery Choc Hops last night. 
Not bad, has a chocolate and vanilla taste to it. Certainly a drink to enjoy on a cold winters night once its warmed up a bit from fridge temps. The wife commented it was one of the nicest beers she had tasted in awhile, and thanks to my constant purchasing of new craft beers for product research, shes tasted a lot.

Dans has it on special at the moment, $16.90 for a 4 pack.


----------



## iralosavic (22/3/12)

Truman said:


> Tried the Mildura Brewery Choc Hops last night.
> Not bad, has a chocolate and vanilla taste to it. Certainly a drink to enjoy on a cold winters night once its warmed up a bit from fridge temps. The wife commented it was one of the nicest beers she had tasted in awhile, and thanks to my constant purchasing of new craft beers for product research, shes tasted a lot.
> 
> Dans has it on special at the moment, $16.90 for a 4 pack.



Give the Youngs Double Choc a go next time. That's my favourite choc dominant stout. Unfortunately, it's not the cheapest stout around and I've not seen it in packs, only by the bottle or case...


----------



## Truman42 (22/3/12)

iralosavic said:


> Give the Youngs Double Choc a go next time. That's my favourite choc dominant stout. Unfortunately, it's not the cheapest stout around and I've not seen it in packs, only by the bottle or case...



Ive tried it, Liquorland had it on special for $5 a stubbie a few months back so I brought 4 of them. Enjoyed them too.


----------



## iralosavic (22/3/12)

Truman said:


> Ive tried it, Liquorland had it on special for $5 a stubbie a few months back so I brought 4 of them. Enjoyed them too.



Ah good show. I was witholding on the Mildura Choc as I was planning a trip to their brewery this year, but I'm probably just going to do a tour of the three breweries up near Healsville and surrounds instead now, so I might have to get me a 4 pack. Cheers


----------



## panzerd18 (25/9/14)

There may be a difference between the Guinness brewed in Ireland and the Guinness brewed under licence in Australia.


----------



## Bribie G (26/9/14)

I take it you didn't read the thread before posting.


----------



## panzerd18 (26/9/14)

The  Invalid stout is probably my favorite commercial stout.


----------



## Blind Dog (26/9/14)

[SIZE=medium]Guinness can be pretty variable in the UK in my experience. Trick seems to be to find a pub that knows how to serve real ale and the Guinness will rock. Standard pub serving Carling and John Shit and the Guinness was likely to be crap. Mind you, given the Chandos (Sam Smiths) was my local after work in London, Guinness was rarely drunk.[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]At least Guinness on tap in Australia is pretty much uniform. Crap, but at least uniformly crap so you know not to bother[/SIZE]

[SIZE=medium]Murphy’s in cans with the widget is so much better than Guinness IMO, if you’re after an Irish Stout[/SIZE]


----------



## panzerd18 (21/11/14)

So I'm drinking Guinness from a 440ml can with the slogan 'Brewed in Dublin' written along the bottom.

Being an admirer of Invalid Stout, I decided to buy a six pack of Guinness. 

I was shocked drinking the Guinness. I would say the Invalid Stout has at least twice if not three times the flavour impact.

The Guinness is nice though, and I could see it appealing to a wider audience due to its more subdued flavour.


----------



## Grott (21/11/14)

"I was shocked drinking the Guinness. I would say the Invalid Stout has at least twice if not three times the flavour impact."

Couldn't agree more, I find the Guinness tins lack body and are watery. Then us home brewers are a spoilt lot.


----------



## Bribie G (21/11/14)

panzerd18 said:


> So I'm drinking Guinness from a 440ml can with the slogan 'Brewed in Dublin' written along the bottom.
> 
> Being an admirer of Invalid Stout, I decided to buy a six pack of Guinness.
> 
> ...


That's a bit like saying "being an admirer of Strong 9% Euro lagers I bought a six pack of XXXX Gold"...

Draught Guinness and Carlton Invalid Stout are in two entirely different classes of beer (stout and strong stout respectively) and within those classes there are different styles (dry stout and foreign extra stout respectively). - you could try reading the BJCP style guide to give you an idea of what the characteristics of each class are and whether these two beers tick the boxes for their particular styles.


----------



## wide eyed and legless (22/11/14)

The foreign extra stout kicks all their arses.


----------



## Midnight Brew (22/11/14)

wide eyed and legless said:


> IMG_0042.jpg
> The foreign extra stout kicks all their arses.


Loved it so much that I consumed loads of them in Bali despite the heat.


----------



## wide eyed and legless (22/11/14)

It's a popular drink over in Indonesia, funnily enough its the women who ask for Bir Hitam (black beer)


----------



## panzerd18 (22/11/14)

I always remembered the Guinness Draught to taste more bold, but maybe I have just become accustomed with Invalid Stout.


----------

