Guinness

[manticle]

You'd be hard pressed to find hops in guiness.

I love pommy hops.

 

[lael]

Is there any way to get the silky creaminess of guiness on tap without nitrogen?

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Not really

 

[lael]

ok - thanks. sad reality.

 

[431neb]

I knew I couldn'tve been the only one who went on the brewery tour just to get absolutely trolleyed on the free pints the Japanese tourists leave behind. Cheapest place to get drunk in Dublin! It definitely does taste better over there too. I used to get the ferry over from Britain, the bar on the ferry served Dublin guinness and the pub at the train station served English guinness, so I've had a pint of each about half an hour apart. There was no comparison.

They take quality control from country to country very seriously. The year I went the guide told a story about a brewery in some African nation taking out the title for the best Guinness that year (maybe for more than one year I dunno) .

A quick clip from Wikipedia….

Guinness has a significant share of the African beer market, where it has been sold since 1827. About 40% of worldwide total Guinness volume is brewed and sold in Africa, with Foreign Extra Stout the most popular variant.

Guinness is often served very poorly and is also quite misunderstood IMO. I turned a pint back in a pub in Berwick (Vic) around Christmas because it had a bizarre chemical taste to it. The publican agreed but said that half that keg was sold the night before without raising an eyebrow. Unfortunately I think many of those patrons will just think that Guinness is a bit weird and move on. On the flip side to that one of my Irish mates won't drink Guinness in Australia. He likes to keep that sacred for when he goes home. His old man is a publican that understands Guinness.

BrewbieNewbie do some of the girls over there still drink Guinness and Black? I would order pints for the girls with a nip of blackcurrant cordial in it and some of the barmen would get shitty and point to my unadulterated pint and say things like "That's the one with the Guinness in it". Fair enough fella.. I'm a beer snob now .... I feel your pain.

Apologies to original poster for going off on a tangent. Yes there are Guinness lovers here on AHB.

 

[Bribie G]

Ok Guinness 101

Australian keg Guinness is brewed by Lion, probably at Lidcombe. It is a lager (As agreed between Guinness and Tooheys decades ago because Toohey's didn't have enough spare ale capacity, Old being more popular than it is nowadays. )
It uses local base malts and the Guinness Yeast and maybe the hop extract plus black concentrate shipped from Ireland... Thirsty Boy would know but no longer posts.
Guinness was brewed by CUB until recently but the lost the gig to Lion who had it originally.

Australian Bottled Guinness, the 6% ABV variety, is a brew unique to Australia, has no connection whatsoever with the draught stuff and I quite like it, but reckon Coopers and Sheaf shit all over it.

Cans of Guinness with the widget are fully imported from Dublin and are the nearest you'd get to the Irish brew.

"Guinness: the 250 year quest for the Perfect Pint" by Bill Yenne tells it all.

Edit: Brewbienewbie, Guinness is not brewed in the UK, they did have a brewery at Park Royal in London from the 1930s for domestic supply but it closed in 2005, so if you did that trip prior to 2005 you would have indeed experienced two brews. I found the UK version very bland compared to imported.

Edit edit: and the hops are an extract from mainly high alpha USA hops. G has a long connection with the USA especially since Ireland cut its ties with ye olde Empire and has traded for ingredients from the USA for nearly all the 20th Century onwards.

 

[Ducatiboy stu]

Coopers Stout...and Sheaf Stout really are fantastic stouts.

I love winter. Its when the stouts come into the bottle shops

Sheaf is a bit cheaper...but...it is a nice stout.

 

[shaunous]

Well fair enough Bribie, I thought Guinness and Corona were the only 2 breweries in the world who didn't let others brew their beers. I thought I even seen this in a Doco recently also. Turns out it's only Corona then, or maybe I'm wrong there too.

I remember drinking a Sheaf Stout in high school, bought under age from a little shop, was warm and tasted absolutely fukin terrible. i might have to revisit this if others like it.

 

[philmud]

I'm really extremely ambivalent about Guinness. Also, the amount of times I've said this and been told, by someone with a pint of Guinness (in an Aussie pub) that I only feel that way because I haven't tried it in an Irish pub... If I felt that way, I wouldn't drink it n Australia.

 

[peas_and_corn]

Well fair enough Bribie, I thought Guinness and Corona were the only 2 breweries in the world who didn't let others brew their beers. I thought I even seen this in a Doco recently also. Turns out it's only Corona then, or maybe I'm wrong there too.

I remember drinking a Sheaf Stout in high school, bought under age from a little shop, was warm and tasted absolutely fukin terrible. i might have to revisit this if others like it.

No, corona is bul as well.

My biggest issue with Guinness is the only thing that gives it any body is the nitrogen. The beer itself is incredibly thin.

 

[Bribie G]

Actually my first comment contained an obvious stuff up... It's brewed as a lager in Australia (Screwtop was told this on his tour of Yatala when CUB had the gig) so it wouldn't be brewed using the Guinness Yeast, probably just Fosters B strain like most of the rest.

 

[pk.sax]

I find the imported cans shit over coopers stout. The coopers stout is a bit weird, none if that smoothness. Not a fan.

 

[Beer Ninja]

Love it

Much better off tap and much better in Dublin but the imported cans are great.

Beer cans too- not the lady type- not that there is anything wrong with either, but its a Guinness topic

Definite +1 beer for me- and I dig hoppy IPAs APAs etc! still love it!

I've seen people drinking straight from the imported cans rather than pouring. Sort of spoils the experience.

I've drunk Guinness in England and Dublin and couldn't tell the difference. Some of my mates agree, some disagree. The jury is out for me...

 

[Spiesy]

I find it completely over rated.

I have never tried it in Dublin. Just out of bottles, cans (with widgets) and at many pubs throughout Australia, some of which had a claim to having the best Guiness.

Would much prefer Coopers or Mountain Goat Surefoot.

Edit: and I love Stout.

 

[mje1980]

This is crazy, it's like we all have our own individual taste in beer or something.

 

[Spiesy]

This is crazy, it's like we all have our own individual taste in beer or something.

Lol

 

[shaunous]

I find it completely over rated.

It's definitely not rated around here, head to the local and get one, people normally say 'what the hell is that your drinking' and if they have a sip it's normally a reaction of 'what is that shit', but it doesn't help most or the time they only taste the creamy head and not the actual beer.

I've had Carlton black once, might have been a bad batch, but I wouldn't feed that to my dog, was fukin terrible.

 

[pedleyr]

I've only tried it once, when I was about 18. I didn't like it but I had drastically different taste then to now. Most would say I had terrible taste.

Since then I've only had two stouts - a Young's chocolate stout about 2 weeks ago which I didn't mind, and an Irish Red that I brewed whilst distracted by children that had far too much dark malt and so was a stout of sorts. The keg didn't last 2 weeks and has enlivened my interest in stouts...

Neither of those beers tasted anything like what I remember Guinness to be, but thanks to this thread I'll grab an imported can of Guinness today!

Of the local stouts, which are worth trying? Cooper's seems popular, I can't get Tooheys Old in Melbourne that I know of. I saw someone mention the Mountain Goat stout, which I'll try, what about the 4 Pines one?

 

[manticle]

Carlton black is made by mixing bitumen with a shandy.

 

[manticle]

4 pines stout is good if the bottle is in good nick. Check best before date, buy from a decent shop that look after their stock.

Sam Smith's oatmeal for an import. Also their imperial is lovely.