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A smooth texture, a creamy head that is often etched with a
four-leaf clover - Guinness is the drink of Ireland. It is available at every pub worth their
salt. It is as ubiquitous as U2
music. For the traveler, it provides
refreshment, nutrients, and a social environment.
These three things can be tough to find when on the
road. Traveling - though exciting and
one of life's greatest pleasures -- can tucker a person out. Driving all day, no place to rest your head,
no place refresh your body, no people to talk to except cashiers, eating out of
a cardboard box in your backseat - over time, these conditions can start to do
you in.
Guinness is salvation.
Stop at any pub along the road, and you will find it. Each time, it offers some renewal.
When the summer days are long, the sun rising around 6AM and
setting around 10:30PM, there is lots of time in between to fill. We sit for a pint each day and hope we do not
become alcoholics by the end of the trip.
But Guinness is not the type of beer to get drunk to. It's the rich, mellow kind, calling for slow
sips over savory conversation.
In Ballyvaughan, my travel companion and I come up with an
idea. It occurs to us, sitting on the
waterfront, two cold pints of Guinness in hand.
We decide to have one pint of Guinness every day on our travels. According to my calculations, that calls for
just under seventy pints each.
After that, I pay more attention to my Guinness. I observe things about it. Sometimes, the beer lacks flavor, or tastes
rather flat and disappointing. I start
to learn more about why.
Guinness is a dry stout, originating in Dublin at Arthur
Guinness's St. James's Gate Brewery. It
is based on a porter style beer coming from London in the early 1700s. The distinctive flavor is from the roasted
barley that is unfermented. It is
Ireland's most popular alcoholic beverage, bringing the Guinness & Co. a whopping
annual income of two billion euro.
A glass of Guinness contains 198 calories per pint, fewer
calories than many light beers. Guinness
can be beneficial to the heart, studies show.
Antioxidants in the beer, similar to
those in some fruits and vegetables, retard the deposits of cholesterol
on the artery walls. Raise your glass to
that !
There are several steps to achieving the perfect pour. Guinness should be served with the beer line
running through a cooler to chill the liquid.
It requires a "double pour," due to the foaming action of the nitrogen -
the pint is filled ¾, allowed to settle, and then filled to the top of the
glass. After the initial pour, a good
bartender will finish the remainder of the glass with a forward push of the tap
- which releases the beer more slower, allowing for a longer lasting head -
rather than the standard, downward pull.
This explains Guinness' campaign of "good things come to those who
wait."
Although the beer appears to be black, it is actually a dark
shade of ruby.
Mixed drinks containing Guinness include: Black and Tan or
Half and Half, a combination of pale or amber ale and Guinness and Bass. Guinness and Black is a pint of Guinness with
a dash of blackcurrant cordial, turning the head purple. A Black Velvet is half Guinness and half
champagne. Poor Man's Black Velvet is
equal parts Guinness and cider. And,
ever popular in America, the Irish Car Bomb -- a shot of half Irish Cream and
half Irish Whiskey that is dropped into a half pint of Guinness.
One day later, we fall behind on our pact. We don't have another pint ‘til the following
week. We start to calculate the actual
cost. Yikes! It is expensive. A pint averages 3.50 euro to 5 euro - equally
$4.90 to $7.00 each - at the current exchange rate.
Irish people spend a lot on their booze, and, though I love
the custom, I don't really want to adopt the habit. A report funded by the European Commission
and produced by the UK Institute of Alcohol Studies found that a higher
proportion of income in Ireland is spent on alcohol than any other country in
the EU. Household alcohol spending was
three times more than any other European household - the average was 1,675 euro
in Ireland, followed by Denmark, which spends 531 euro. This means that Irish households are
drinking, on average, one pint per day - I hope it's Guinness.
Since we are unable to drink every day, we go for quality
over quantity. I pay attention to the
standout pints. The best pint of
Guinness I had in Ireland was in Dingle, at Curran's Pub. The taste was frosty, the beer colder than
naturally possible, the flavor rich and smooth and full-bodied. That one was worth it.
Written by Liz O'Malley - Summer of Travel 2007
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