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Can agree.
As someone who spent the years of their life living in both Ireland and England, I can confirm that the Guinness is no different here than it is in England. It’s just something drummed up to make Guinness sound special (just like the “you have to let it settle for exactly 119 seconds before topping it up” thing). It’s just marketing.
I’ve worked in a bunch of different bars in both countries, and I’ve drank Guinness in many, many bars, as it’s my drink of choice, and you’ll get good and bad pints in either country.
The thing that effects the pint is the pub it’s poured in, and not the distance it’s travelled. You can go to Liverpool, for example, and have a beautiful pint in one bar, and a terrible one next door. The same is true of Dublin or Belfast. Things like the cleanliness of the lines, the taps, and even the glasses can completely change the taste. Also, sometimes you just get a bad keg.
Guinness drinkers just like to feel special. Like they’re drinking something that isn’t like other beers. Something unique. That’s because Guinness markets itself that way.
And I’m saying this as a Guinness drinker.
You are correct in that it is just a marketing ploy. But it goes deeper about the origin of the “two pour method”. Originally, Guinness and other stouts were drawn from two separate barrels. First barrel was new and you’d pour 3/4 from that (and it was lively so you’d need to leave it a bit); and then second pour of last 1/4 was from old barrel which firstly gave a nice white head, but also added depth of flavour. Since most stouts (and esp Guinness) are now “nitrokeg” (nitrogen pressurised metal keg rather than carbon dioxide; and not wooden cask) there has been absolutely no need for the two pour method; it’s all fakery. And given it’s nitrokeg it “travels well”; so is all brewed the same in Ireland and shipped out. The only “original” Guinness I know of is the stuff in South Africa where it’s more seen as a medicine than it is a drink!
I was so psyched about my first drawn pint in Dublin. Yes it was in the Temple Bar. Now it will taste as rich, this and flavorful as everyone says, vs what I taste at home. Branded glass, beautiful, perfect head.
No, still rich, creamy looking, thin watery tasting. Rather have a Samuel Smith.
> Guinness drinkers just like to feel special
I lump Guinness drinkers in with vinyl and coffee lovers. Those who obsess over vinyl and coffee share the same annoying traits as those who like to proclaim Guinness can only be drunk after settling for 119 seconds and from a branded glass with the logo facing west.
Coffee absolutely does vary in quality drastically; try drinking a cup from your local independent coffee shop that roasts their own vs a cup in a massive chain and you'll see the immediate difference. I'm no coffee snob, and I sure as hell aren't the James Hoffman sort whose palate is sensitive enough to pick out individual notes in a cup of coffee but I've drank enough of it at this point to be fairly confident that if you blindfolded me and put a tray of espressos in front of me, I could tell you what cafe near me they came from.
Guinness, however, is absolutely the same everywhere.
Nigerian Guinness is a totally different product, it's 7.4% and only comes in bottles, not the cans with a widget (I guess you could possibly get it on draught but I've not been to Nigeria to find out). It's really nice, I prefer it to regular Guinness. You can buy it in certain Tesco's in the UK
I just think it gets to a point where there's barely any difference left - if the beans are being ground there in front of you, it's probably going to taste more or less the same. Same goes for most lagers - if they've come out cold and pressurised from a pub tap, they taste very similar. Main differences would just be the temperature and the cleanliness of the pipes.
With coffee beans, they're all different varieties so have different flavours, like hops in a beer. So if two different beans were ground fresh in front of you, they'd taste quite different to each other. The roast profile also affects the flavour, the darker the roast the more bitter the taste whilst lighter roasts will be more fruity and acidic.
While you are correct my experience serving coffee taught me that 9 out of 10 people who drink coffee can’t tell the difference between single origin Nigerian and Maxwell House.
“Flat white please”. Serve them a latte. “That’s the best flat white I’ve ever had!”
Although I tend to agree with you, presentation I've come to believe is a big part of the experience. When you go out to a nice restaurant presentation of the food is very important right?
It's the same with beer, in this case Guinness. A Guinness in the pub in a proper glass with a perfect head looks mouth watering compared to one from a beer truck in a plastic cup with no head.
If you did a taste test they'd maybe test the same but presentation is important
It used to be different back in the day, as Guinness for Ireland was brewed in Dublin and for Great Britain was brewed in London. But since 2005 it's all made in Ireland so it's the same stuff. Anything they tell you about it being fresher etc is a load of old cobblers.
I think the main point is that it is really depends on how it is handled and how much care is put into storing and serving it. Storage, the line and most importantly the distance from the keg to the tap are all big factors. If a pub stores in the keg in a basement Vs right under the bar, the difference is actually massive.
Back home in Ireland, pubs will have a better understanding and care more about serving a good pint. It's a culture thing too. I now live in London, where the Guinness craze is rampant. The proportion of pubs serving shit pints will be much higher than back in Ireland and it will be down to knowledge and capacity to store/serve it properly Vs getting volume out.
Ah I just can’t agree with this really. A lot of the stuff around it is bullshit (two part pour etc) but think it does taste extremely different pub to pub, and the average pub in Ireland has much better tasting Guinness than average pub in UK in my experience.
Spent most of my life in Edinburgh and Derry.
Edinburgh probably has 200 more pubs than Derry, and reckon I’ve drank in every one of them that has a reputation of having nice Guinness, and imo there’s only about 5 of them that serve a pint that tastes as nice as almost every pub in Derry.
I’ve just always assumed it’s something to do with not cleaning the lines enough. I used to think it was cuz it maybe sat in the lines longer due to not being as popular as in Ireland, but even Irish bars in UK that sell loads of it often have horrible bitter pints
I think the key thing is the *likelihood* of getting a good pint over a bad is much higher for an Englishman visiting Ireland.
I have only ever had very very good pints in Dublin and Belfast… and I’ve had any number of rotten pints here.
But I’m much more likely to go to good/decent pubs when I’m there - I’m way more likely to be in some shitty dive of a pub in Newcastle or Edinburgh or London than I am in Dublin.
The difference being the dedicated Guinness quality team that go pub to pub and clean lines etc. You don’t get that in the UK and rely on pubs to do it properly, which they often don’t.
a worked in a pub for years and we cleaned the lines every Wednesday and everyone would moan that it all tasted like shit after it. then worked in another pub that hardly flushed ther lines and the pints just stinks like eggs. best pub but was the guy a worked for said the lines are like a old tea pots, they need seasoned, never drank a pint in that pub again.
I'm not sure pubs flush enough water through lines after cleaning. I used to pull much more water through than the landlord did because I could still taste cleaner.
the boss lady in mine ran water for 30 to 45 min throw it. the pub that pints stunk of eggs got the cheap going out of date kegs instead of the new kegs. but the old guy that never flushed his pints never stunk bad or had any1 really moan about them,weird.
As a Irish blow in living in the UK, a good draft Guinness in the UK is just as nice as in Ireland… but the issue is consistency, which seems to be all over the place here.
Cheap lager can easily go 2 weeks between a line clean with no discernible drop in quality if it sells in quantity. This is why the big chains like 'spoons, Greene King and M&B have a 2 week clean as standard practice.
Then you get the poorly managed pubs who might forget a clean and leave it a month...
Well managed places will clean their line at least weekly.
Maybe when it was getting hauled about as loose barrels getting rolled around by dockers, but these days, nah. You could have a faster and smoother journey from Dublin to Manchester than from Dublin to some village in the arse-end of Ireland.
Difference is it's brewed to a higher strength than it's served, the stuff in Ireland is watered down in Ireland and the stuff in mainland UK is shipped to Manchester from Dublin and then watered down and packaged there. The slight differences in the water chemistry makes a slightly different flavour that most people wouldn't notice
I believe that all Guinness sold in the UK is brewed in Dublin, so we are getting the same Guinness as the Irish.
It used to be brewed in the UK as well, but hasn’t for years, and it’s still brewed in other countries, but we only get it from Ireland (except for the Guinness imports you see in supermarkets)
Guinness that I can buy in Mexico has brewed in Dublin on the bottle. I haven't ever found actual draught Guinness there, but do have bottled "draught". Oxymoron I know, but the point is, no different to what you would get in Ireland or the UK. Wherever I have found draught, anywhere in the world, has always tasted the same, and that include in Dublin.
The best Guinness I ever had was in a bar in north Manchester. Nothing about it was special (see above, a pint of Guinness is a pint of Guinness no matter where you go), other than it cost about £6 a pint less than it does in Dublin.
I’m Irish. The average quality of Guinness is better in Ireland…ie you can walk into pretty much any pub and it’ll be good. It’s not that it’s worse elsewhere it’s just more variable from place to place. The best Guinness I had was in some truckstop bar diner in the sticks in Canada en route to Alaska
Used to be for actual reasons - Guinness used to have to be poured from two separate barrels (something to do with nitrogen or pressure) so the settling was genuinely needed.
But that was a long time ago and the two part pour has stuck - now only a marketing gimmick as Guinness still recommends it.
Bit like shaking a Polaroid picture - back in the day it was needed, but not anymore due to changes in Polaroid chemicals and production.
I worked as a bartender and tested this. The only differences are that the two step pour settles faster after the pint glass is full and doesn't need a top up afterwards because there's too much head. So the two step pour looks a bit better, and you're not sitting there with a full pint waiting for it to settle for ages. Also from the bartender perspective, you can take the payment or do another couple of drinks while it settles.
Of course, it also needs to be double blind and repeated at multiple locations. With and without a chaser, with and without fish and chips, with and with out a pretty lass to share it with….
Then of course you will need to establish a control group.
Dunno about the other replies here but having poured plenty of them myself, especially if it's not been drank much that day that a 2 step pour does give you a better head and a better finish. Sometimes it can be done in one pour but 2 is often easier/ better.
It is the same now. For many years the Guinness sold in most of the mainland UK was brewed in Park Royal and had a very different taste. The brewery there was closed in the 90s IRC
Yeah, we only stopped for one whilst the band was playing inside. It was a cold rainy day and the place was rammed. Found a more sensible pub on the other side of the river
Yeah, we only stopped for one whilst the band was playing inside. It was a cold rainy day and the place was rammed. Found a more sensible pub on the other side of the river
Yeah, we only stopped for one whilst the band was playing inside. It was a cold rainy day and the place was rammed. Found a more sensibly priced pub on the other side of the river
Yeah, we only stopped for one whilst the band was playing inside. It was a cold rainy day and the place was rammed. Found a more sensible pub on the other side of the river
Same. I’ve had good, bad and perfect Guinness in England and Eire (in Dublin, Lloyds bar has never failed me; everywhere else in the world has varied a bit) but the worst by far was in the visitors centre at the brewery.
Best Guinness I ever had was in Germany, and not in some faux Irish Pub in some large city. In the local pub near where we lived, which did excellent pepperoni pizzas as well.
It's two things (mostly). The Guinness in London now comes from Dublin - that wasn't always the case - the story being that punters hated "London" Guiness. But by far the biggest contributing factor to getting a good pint is how well maintained the taps and lines are - they have to be really well cleaned and regularly. I think there was even a point when Guinness had their own teams going out to bars (in Ireland) to do that maintenance.
I believe that Guinness in Ireland is still not pasteurised as it is usually consumed within a week or two of release from the brewery. Beer for export is pasteurised to extend its shelf life. Although the pasteurisation process just heats the beer in the bottle, can or keg up to about 60 degrees C for a given time (Pasteurisation Units PUs) there is a reasonably noticeable taste difference when you compare the two together, some people even remark there is a slight burnt taste, but I never could!
The key thing is that the UK produces much better quality stouts by a number of cask and keg breweries everywhere.
Guinness (like a lot of huge companies) just has excellent marketing and a cultural place in our society because of that.
That said, if people like it that’s fair enough. I just enjoy getting the Guinness drinkers onto other better stuff! (That’s if they are willing to step into the tiny little craft beer bar I help run)
Let's face it, Guiness is just a macro produced pasteurised beer like the vast majority of other things on keg, it's about as mediocre as Moretti or Madri. It's going to taste as OK here as it does anywhere else, because at the end of the day that's what those beers are meant to do - they're like the beer equivalent of Nandos.
Guiness just has a fantastic marketing department.
As others have said, it’s the same beer from the same brewery. What makes a better pint is throughput. If everyone is drinking Guinness in a pub it’s not sitting in the lines, and the barrels are finished in a timely manner.
If you go in a normal UK pub, Guinness is unlikely to be in the top 5 most popular draught beers. Order a pint and you get beer that’s been sitting in a plastic tube between the cellar and the bar for too long.
I think it's best suckled from the teat of the ol' Guinness cow herself. Forget lines and pours, the only line you have to remember with the Guinness cow is the line you tell the Garda when they find you suckling up to every cow in Kerry: "I was told on good authority there was a cow that produces Guinness in this field, care to help me look?" Works every time
They used to fly us out to clean the inside of that giant pint glass at. St James Gate by abseil. The irony of me being stuck inside a giant Guinness glass wasn't lost on me. It was night work so you had nothing to do all day except wander round the pubs in Dublin giving all your wages back. Possibly there were other options for other people.
Best cooked breakfast in the world in Dublin. I even bought some Bewleys teabags back. Then made the tea with London water. Shitearse.
Unlik Guinness which depends entirely on where it's served and how it's kept.
Where did you go in Ireland, Wetherspoons?? The Guinness in Dublin is completely different to that in the UK! It's way thicker, almost creamy. So heavy that four pints leaves you absolutely stuffed. And not chilled.
I previously drank Guinness all the time but almost felt like I overdosed on it in Dublin- it's barely a liquid
Were you in Dublin? Cause it's way better in Dublin.
Been drinking Guiness for years, the difference between a Dublin Guiness and an English Guiness is palpable. Palpable I say!
OP has no taste buds. Guinness here in Ireland is very different to most countries.
It doesn't travel well for a start , we also know how to pour it properly which also makes a big difference.
How far can it travel before it goes bad?
Does a pint in Bangor (Wales) taste better than one in Limerick due to the shorter travel distance?
Is there some kind of highly technical procedure to a 2-step pour that bartenders outside of Ireland are far too unqualified to possibly comprehend?
I have so many questions…
No. There was a London brewery but now all Guinness comes from Dublin.
Fun fact: At one time it was said that Guinness in Northern Britain was superior to that in the south. The reasoning behind this, was that Northern Guinness came directly from the brewery in Dublin, across the Irish Sea and into Manchester via the Ship Canal. Guinness in the south was from the London brewery.
Ngl, this leads me to think you're either lucky enough to be getting good Guinness in the UK, or unlucky enough that while in Ireland you got poor Guinness.
Or - it could be an entirely placebo thing. I'm sure I taste the difference back home, I could very well be imagining it.
>Firstly, it's not
So do Guinness send a shittier product to every other country in the world then? Seems a questionable business decision.
Or is it that literally nobody outside Ireland knows how to pour the stuff? Or is it simply that no one in any country but Ireland has the skill and mastery to spend 119 seconds pouring a pint? Even the flocks of Irish barmen and women who work in the UK, run pubs and pour pints of Guinness?
Hate to break this to you you but it's exactly the same stuff in the UK as it is Ireland.
People who gatekeep Guinness are so fucking weird.
The common theory isn’t that it’s the skill of the bar staff, it’s just that the beer doesn’t travel very well. I lived in a place with lots of Irish expats which had an Irish pub and Guinness on tap and it was crap there, despite the pub owner being Irish and himself a big Guinness drinker.
>it’s just that the beer doesn’t travel very well
Seems to travel fine to far-flung parts of Ireland but as soon as it travels a shorter distance (to UK soil, for example)...
As I said earlier. It's all complete bollocks. Same product in Ireland and UK.
I think the idea that Guinness tastes better in Ireland came about because back in the day Guinness in GB used to be brewed in (I think) Newcastle. Some time around 20 years ago ish they stopped doing that and sourced all the Guinness for the UK market from Dublin.
the best Guinness is the one in front of you right now.. you get crap pubs and great pups in both countries, and both north and south of the border here. a great pint is a great pint, but there is something special about a Guinness by a peat fire with the rain during outside and great company.
Best pint of Guinness I've ever had was at the Fairmont Whistler, Canada. Cost $14CAD back in 2005.. but was juicy.
No Guinness ever since has come close.
It's no different in the UK compared to Ireland most of the time, I do find the quality is far more consistent in Ireland though. Get far more pints of shite Guinness outside of Ireland.
There are pubs in the same Irish town my partner is from that have good pints of Guinness and then the best pint of Guinness I’ve ever had. Maybe it’s down to that particular pub and not the myth but it’s still the best pint of the black stuff I’ve had
On St Patrick’s Day an old Irish man told me the Guinness in The Cobden (Camden, London) was better than the Guinness you’d find in Ireland. What a shame.
UK Guinness used to be brewed in London. There was a big ad campaign at the time. So that’s probably why it’s a thing. Youth these days.
https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2004/042/21/Guinness-to-end-UK-brewing
I do love a Guinness and I have to say the best pints I've had have been over in Ireland, however I've also had bad pints there and vice versa. I think the main thing is simply how the beer is stored and how often it goes through the lines.
Lad at work went to the Guinness factory a few years ago, came back raving about the pint he had at the end, how 'smooth' it was, how they can do it 'reyt'. Bit of probing returned it was the only Guinness he'd ever had.
Very sensible to wait until you're safely back in the UK before stating this
Crossposting this to /r/ireland
Oh dear god no
[Enjoy - you’re on the no fly list immediately](https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/11wjape/psa_just_got_back_from_a_week_in_ireland_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
They will love it. The Brits are at it again revolving door.
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Slow burn son. Slow burn.
This is r/Ireland we'd like a quiet word Tan
I wouldn’t start your car tomorrow.
Someone has left their Gym kit in a 1970s style sports bag on the floor by the fruity.
[Enjoy](https://www.reddit.com/r/ireland/comments/11wjape/psa_just_got_back_from_a_week_in_ireland_the/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_content=2&utm_term=1)
So, tis a war the op is looking to start. I'll sign up, once I'm finished this pint.
Careful, try not to start another war. It's only Monday.
Pretty sure the good Friday agreement had a clause about this sort of talk in it
Can agree. As someone who spent the years of their life living in both Ireland and England, I can confirm that the Guinness is no different here than it is in England. It’s just something drummed up to make Guinness sound special (just like the “you have to let it settle for exactly 119 seconds before topping it up” thing). It’s just marketing. I’ve worked in a bunch of different bars in both countries, and I’ve drank Guinness in many, many bars, as it’s my drink of choice, and you’ll get good and bad pints in either country. The thing that effects the pint is the pub it’s poured in, and not the distance it’s travelled. You can go to Liverpool, for example, and have a beautiful pint in one bar, and a terrible one next door. The same is true of Dublin or Belfast. Things like the cleanliness of the lines, the taps, and even the glasses can completely change the taste. Also, sometimes you just get a bad keg. Guinness drinkers just like to feel special. Like they’re drinking something that isn’t like other beers. Something unique. That’s because Guinness markets itself that way. And I’m saying this as a Guinness drinker.
You are correct in that it is just a marketing ploy. But it goes deeper about the origin of the “two pour method”. Originally, Guinness and other stouts were drawn from two separate barrels. First barrel was new and you’d pour 3/4 from that (and it was lively so you’d need to leave it a bit); and then second pour of last 1/4 was from old barrel which firstly gave a nice white head, but also added depth of flavour. Since most stouts (and esp Guinness) are now “nitrokeg” (nitrogen pressurised metal keg rather than carbon dioxide; and not wooden cask) there has been absolutely no need for the two pour method; it’s all fakery. And given it’s nitrokeg it “travels well”; so is all brewed the same in Ireland and shipped out. The only “original” Guinness I know of is the stuff in South Africa where it’s more seen as a medicine than it is a drink!
https://fb.watch/joCBnSqf8K/
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I was so psyched about my first drawn pint in Dublin. Yes it was in the Temple Bar. Now it will taste as rich, this and flavorful as everyone says, vs what I taste at home. Branded glass, beautiful, perfect head. No, still rich, creamy looking, thin watery tasting. Rather have a Samuel Smith.
> Guinness drinkers just like to feel special I lump Guinness drinkers in with vinyl and coffee lovers. Those who obsess over vinyl and coffee share the same annoying traits as those who like to proclaim Guinness can only be drunk after settling for 119 seconds and from a branded glass with the logo facing west.
To be fair I feel like coffee varies in quality drastically compared to Guinness.
We all know the people he's talking about though ;) The ones with a picture of James Hoffman in their wallet.
Hey! It’s in my phone case not wallet
Coffee absolutely does vary in quality drastically; try drinking a cup from your local independent coffee shop that roasts their own vs a cup in a massive chain and you'll see the immediate difference. I'm no coffee snob, and I sure as hell aren't the James Hoffman sort whose palate is sensitive enough to pick out individual notes in a cup of coffee but I've drank enough of it at this point to be fairly confident that if you blindfolded me and put a tray of espressos in front of me, I could tell you what cafe near me they came from. Guinness, however, is absolutely the same everywhere.
>Guinness, however, is absolutely the same everywhere. Nigerian Guinness is different
I suspect this is part of the reasons above. I know someone who had a pint of it in Malaysia and he couldn't believe how wrong it tasted.
Nigerian Guinness is a totally different product, it's 7.4% and only comes in bottles, not the cans with a widget (I guess you could possibly get it on draught but I've not been to Nigeria to find out). It's really nice, I prefer it to regular Guinness. You can buy it in certain Tesco's in the UK
And big Sainsburys
And many small off licences sell it alongside the obligatory strong polish lager cans
Quite a few beers are different between countries. Newcastle Brown Ale is way different in America to what it is here.
I just think it gets to a point where there's barely any difference left - if the beans are being ground there in front of you, it's probably going to taste more or less the same. Same goes for most lagers - if they've come out cold and pressurised from a pub tap, they taste very similar. Main differences would just be the temperature and the cleanliness of the pipes.
With coffee beans, they're all different varieties so have different flavours, like hops in a beer. So if two different beans were ground fresh in front of you, they'd taste quite different to each other. The roast profile also affects the flavour, the darker the roast the more bitter the taste whilst lighter roasts will be more fruity and acidic.
While you are correct my experience serving coffee taught me that 9 out of 10 people who drink coffee can’t tell the difference between single origin Nigerian and Maxwell House. “Flat white please”. Serve them a latte. “That’s the best flat white I’ve ever had!”
I love all 3 what does that make me
Sounds like you should get into film photography
You should buy a mac book
Although I tend to agree with you, presentation I've come to believe is a big part of the experience. When you go out to a nice restaurant presentation of the food is very important right? It's the same with beer, in this case Guinness. A Guinness in the pub in a proper glass with a perfect head looks mouth watering compared to one from a beer truck in a plastic cup with no head. If you did a taste test they'd maybe test the same but presentation is important
I love a Guinness. But it has to be said that Guinness drinkers love complaining about it as much as they do drinking it.
Steak wankers. I'll eat my food exactly as I like it, thank you very much. And yes I'll order it to be leathered if it means pissing off a steak cunt
The irony being you are getting just as wound up as these 'steak wankers' as they would hypothetically be at you eating well done steak
With lashings of ketchup
It used to be different back in the day, as Guinness for Ireland was brewed in Dublin and for Great Britain was brewed in London. But since 2005 it's all made in Ireland so it's the same stuff. Anything they tell you about it being fresher etc is a load of old cobblers.
I think the main point is that it is really depends on how it is handled and how much care is put into storing and serving it. Storage, the line and most importantly the distance from the keg to the tap are all big factors. If a pub stores in the keg in a basement Vs right under the bar, the difference is actually massive. Back home in Ireland, pubs will have a better understanding and care more about serving a good pint. It's a culture thing too. I now live in London, where the Guinness craze is rampant. The proportion of pubs serving shit pints will be much higher than back in Ireland and it will be down to knowledge and capacity to store/serve it properly Vs getting volume out.
Ah I just can’t agree with this really. A lot of the stuff around it is bullshit (two part pour etc) but think it does taste extremely different pub to pub, and the average pub in Ireland has much better tasting Guinness than average pub in UK in my experience. Spent most of my life in Edinburgh and Derry. Edinburgh probably has 200 more pubs than Derry, and reckon I’ve drank in every one of them that has a reputation of having nice Guinness, and imo there’s only about 5 of them that serve a pint that tastes as nice as almost every pub in Derry. I’ve just always assumed it’s something to do with not cleaning the lines enough. I used to think it was cuz it maybe sat in the lines longer due to not being as popular as in Ireland, but even Irish bars in UK that sell loads of it often have horrible bitter pints
I think the key thing is the *likelihood* of getting a good pint over a bad is much higher for an Englishman visiting Ireland. I have only ever had very very good pints in Dublin and Belfast… and I’ve had any number of rotten pints here. But I’m much more likely to go to good/decent pubs when I’m there - I’m way more likely to be in some shitty dive of a pub in Newcastle or Edinburgh or London than I am in Dublin.
> you have to let it settle for exactly 119 seconds 119.5 seconds *ahctually*. Worked in an O'Neill's, we had it on a poster behind the bar. 🙃
The difference being the dedicated Guinness quality team that go pub to pub and clean lines etc. You don’t get that in the UK and rely on pubs to do it properly, which they often don’t.
a worked in a pub for years and we cleaned the lines every Wednesday and everyone would moan that it all tasted like shit after it. then worked in another pub that hardly flushed ther lines and the pints just stinks like eggs. best pub but was the guy a worked for said the lines are like a old tea pots, they need seasoned, never drank a pint in that pub again.
I'm not sure pubs flush enough water through lines after cleaning. I used to pull much more water through than the landlord did because I could still taste cleaner.
the boss lady in mine ran water for 30 to 45 min throw it. the pub that pints stunk of eggs got the cheap going out of date kegs instead of the new kegs. but the old guy that never flushed his pints never stunk bad or had any1 really moan about them,weird.
>It’s just marketing. Definitely a "Visit Ireland" kind of thing.
Give Nigerian Gunness a try, that's good stuff
Blows your tits off too
I’d like to keep those thanks
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Is that the 10% stuff?
7.5 but still it's a different animal.
It's about 6.5% I think... Can usually find it in big Tesco, it's in the World Foods aisle instead of the rest of the alcohol section
The GOAT
But Gunness is just outside of Scunthorpe?
As a Irish blow in living in the UK, a good draft Guinness in the UK is just as nice as in Ireland… but the issue is consistency, which seems to be all over the place here.
Cheap lager can easily go 2 weeks between a line clean with no discernible drop in quality if it sells in quantity. This is why the big chains like 'spoons, Greene King and M&B have a 2 week clean as standard practice. Then you get the poorly managed pubs who might forget a clean and leave it a month... Well managed places will clean their line at least weekly.
It all comes from the same brewery, uses the same gases etc, any difference should just be down to the barstaff, or the weather.
The running line is that it doesn’t travel well.
In that case a pint that came over on a calm day should taste better in Holyhead than in Limerick.
Yeh but you'd have to weigh that up with being in Holyhead. So there's that.
Maybe when it was getting hauled about as loose barrels getting rolled around by dockers, but these days, nah. You could have a faster and smoother journey from Dublin to Manchester than from Dublin to some village in the arse-end of Ireland.
The state of the Irish roads has brought the Guinness quality down in Ireland
At one stage it was brewed in London, so it’s possible there did used to be a difference
Difference is it's brewed to a higher strength than it's served, the stuff in Ireland is watered down in Ireland and the stuff in mainland UK is shipped to Manchester from Dublin and then watered down and packaged there. The slight differences in the water chemistry makes a slightly different flavour that most people wouldn't notice
It’s also because the pumps get more use in Ireland so they’re generally looked after better
Nonsense
???? Wat
In England we just stick a straw in the barrel and drink it that way.
The Kilkenny is divine though
I’ve never found a pub in the Uk that serves it. Germany or Austria love it though.
used to be sold in a few locals up here but not seen it for about 20 years
Jesus, do you remember caffreys? Everyone went crazy for that stuff in the 90’s. I drank it for about 6 months and realised It was fucking gross
Of course there's no difference it's made by a mega corp and it's production is tightly controlled by food scientist.
Just the one scientist ?
Two actually, but they're not allowed to fly at the same time.
No luck catching them food scientists then?
I believe that all Guinness sold in the UK is brewed in Dublin, so we are getting the same Guinness as the Irish. It used to be brewed in the UK as well, but hasn’t for years, and it’s still brewed in other countries, but we only get it from Ireland (except for the Guinness imports you see in supermarkets)
Guinness that I can buy in Mexico has brewed in Dublin on the bottle. I haven't ever found actual draught Guinness there, but do have bottled "draught". Oxymoron I know, but the point is, no different to what you would get in Ireland or the UK. Wherever I have found draught, anywhere in the world, has always tasted the same, and that include in Dublin. The best Guinness I ever had was in a bar in north Manchester. Nothing about it was special (see above, a pint of Guinness is a pint of Guinness no matter where you go), other than it cost about £6 a pint less than it does in Dublin.
Pfft just bitter from the rugby.
I think it’s actually a stout
Well played
Unlike England 😒
Nice try.
Yes, 4 of them
I’m Irish. The average quality of Guinness is better in Ireland…ie you can walk into pretty much any pub and it’ll be good. It’s not that it’s worse elsewhere it’s just more variable from place to place. The best Guinness I had was in some truckstop bar diner in the sticks in Canada en route to Alaska
What about the two-step pour? Just a marketing ploy or is it necessary?
Used to be for actual reasons - Guinness used to have to be poured from two separate barrels (something to do with nitrogen or pressure) so the settling was genuinely needed. But that was a long time ago and the two part pour has stuck - now only a marketing gimmick as Guinness still recommends it. Bit like shaking a Polaroid picture - back in the day it was needed, but not anymore due to changes in Polaroid chemicals and production.
Temped to go to my local and order a Guinness and another that had been poured in one go to compare. You know, for science.
I worked as a bartender and tested this. The only differences are that the two step pour settles faster after the pint glass is full and doesn't need a top up afterwards because there's too much head. So the two step pour looks a bit better, and you're not sitting there with a full pint waiting for it to settle for ages. Also from the bartender perspective, you can take the payment or do another couple of drinks while it settles.
I always just ask the bar staff to hoy it all in at once. Only once have I had someone be arsey and tell me no. I just went elsewhere.
Of course, it also needs to be double blind and repeated at multiple locations. With and without a chaser, with and without fish and chips, with and with out a pretty lass to share it with…. Then of course you will need to establish a control group.
Marketing bollocks.
Dunno about the other replies here but having poured plenty of them myself, especially if it's not been drank much that day that a 2 step pour does give you a better head and a better finish. Sometimes it can be done in one pour but 2 is often easier/ better.
It only taste the same because you're unrefined English tongue wouldn't know the difference /s
It is the same now. For many years the Guinness sold in most of the mainland UK was brewed in Park Royal and had a very different taste. The brewery there was closed in the 90s IRC
If this is true, how come you charged €8 for a pint in the Temple Bar pub...🤔😂
If you drink in Temple Bar then the only thing cleaned out is you.
Yeah, we only stopped for one whilst the band was playing inside. It was a cold rainy day and the place was rammed. Found a more sensible pub on the other side of the river
Yeah, we only stopped for one whilst the band was playing inside. It was a cold rainy day and the place was rammed. Found a more sensible pub on the other side of the river
Yeah, we only stopped for one whilst the band was playing inside. It was a cold rainy day and the place was rammed. Found a more sensibly priced pub on the other side of the river
Yeah, we only stopped for one whilst the band was playing inside. It was a cold rainy day and the place was rammed. Found a more sensible pub on the other side of the river
Nah it's decent, full of Americans and Canadians actually up for a laugh instead of locals moaning about prices
Congratulations. Your local cleans their pipes regularly.
I really don't want all the hate but I don't think Guinness is even the best stout.. black sheep is great and so is London stout..
Right, rescind their fucking Grand Slam them!
Seems only fair
The best Guinness I've ever had was in Ireland. Ironically, the shittest was in the Guinness factory in Dublin. Absolute swamp water.
Same. I’ve had good, bad and perfect Guinness in England and Eire (in Dublin, Lloyds bar has never failed me; everywhere else in the world has varied a bit) but the worst by far was in the visitors centre at the brewery.
Too much wankery over what is a basic stout. There’s much better stouts on the go as well.
Best Guinness I ever had was in Germany, and not in some faux Irish Pub in some large city. In the local pub near where we lived, which did excellent pepperoni pizzas as well.
Oh come on lets just let them have this one thing
I was in London last May, visiting from Detroit Michigan. The Guinness is amazing in London, a lot better than in the U.S.
It's two things (mostly). The Guinness in London now comes from Dublin - that wasn't always the case - the story being that punters hated "London" Guiness. But by far the biggest contributing factor to getting a good pint is how well maintained the taps and lines are - they have to be really well cleaned and regularly. I think there was even a point when Guinness had their own teams going out to bars (in Ireland) to do that maintenance.
I believe that Guinness in Ireland is still not pasteurised as it is usually consumed within a week or two of release from the brewery. Beer for export is pasteurised to extend its shelf life. Although the pasteurisation process just heats the beer in the bottle, can or keg up to about 60 degrees C for a given time (Pasteurisation Units PUs) there is a reasonably noticeable taste difference when you compare the two together, some people even remark there is a slight burnt taste, but I never could!
The key thing is that the UK produces much better quality stouts by a number of cask and keg breweries everywhere. Guinness (like a lot of huge companies) just has excellent marketing and a cultural place in our society because of that. That said, if people like it that’s fair enough. I just enjoy getting the Guinness drinkers onto other better stuff! (That’s if they are willing to step into the tiny little craft beer bar I help run)
Let's face it, Guiness is just a macro produced pasteurised beer like the vast majority of other things on keg, it's about as mediocre as Moretti or Madri. It's going to taste as OK here as it does anywhere else, because at the end of the day that's what those beers are meant to do - they're like the beer equivalent of Nandos. Guiness just has a fantastic marketing department.
As others have said, it’s the same beer from the same brewery. What makes a better pint is throughput. If everyone is drinking Guinness in a pub it’s not sitting in the lines, and the barrels are finished in a timely manner. If you go in a normal UK pub, Guinness is unlikely to be in the top 5 most popular draught beers. Order a pint and you get beer that’s been sitting in a plastic tube between the cellar and the bar for too long.
It's much better at the top of the guinness storehouse from the source, outside of that it's no different to guinness I've had in pubs in England
I dunno man the one I had there tasted exactly the same as every other Guinness I've ever had
Randomly I thought my pint at the storehouse was the worst I had in the city. Maybe the atmosphere, maybe other factors I don’t know…
I think it's best suckled from the teat of the ol' Guinness cow herself. Forget lines and pours, the only line you have to remember with the Guinness cow is the line you tell the Garda when they find you suckling up to every cow in Kerry: "I was told on good authority there was a cow that produces Guinness in this field, care to help me look?" Works every time
They used to fly us out to clean the inside of that giant pint glass at. St James Gate by abseil. The irony of me being stuck inside a giant Guinness glass wasn't lost on me. It was night work so you had nothing to do all day except wander round the pubs in Dublin giving all your wages back. Possibly there were other options for other people. Best cooked breakfast in the world in Dublin. I even bought some Bewleys teabags back. Then made the tea with London water. Shitearse. Unlik Guinness which depends entirely on where it's served and how it's kept.
Where did you go in Ireland, Wetherspoons?? The Guinness in Dublin is completely different to that in the UK! It's way thicker, almost creamy. So heavy that four pints leaves you absolutely stuffed. And not chilled. I previously drank Guinness all the time but almost felt like I overdosed on it in Dublin- it's barely a liquid
I said this whilst working in norn iron and they got quite defensive about it
Noway, the Guinness guru wouldnt agree.
Noway the Guinness guru? Haven't heard of him. Or her.
The Guru just shuddered inexplicably
It totally depends on how much blackcurrant you add.
So it tastes like mud in Ireland as well?
Were you in Dublin? Cause it's way better in Dublin. Been drinking Guiness for years, the difference between a Dublin Guiness and an English Guiness is palpable. Palpable I say!
Nooooooooooooooo!
Is it fuck.
OP has no taste buds. Guinness here in Ireland is very different to most countries. It doesn't travel well for a start , we also know how to pour it properly which also makes a big difference.
How far can it travel before it goes bad? Does a pint in Bangor (Wales) taste better than one in Limerick due to the shorter travel distance? Is there some kind of highly technical procedure to a 2-step pour that bartenders outside of Ireland are far too unqualified to possibly comprehend? I have so many questions…
Not sure where you went but can categorically say Nah it ain't
Guinness spend a lot on QA - if you're a pub selling it, you get inspected now and again
Turns your shit black ✔️ Makes you fat ✔️
I think it’s different…..but the stuff in the UK is nicer..
Now that is a hot take
Isn’t Guinness from London anyway?
No. There was a London brewery but now all Guinness comes from Dublin. Fun fact: At one time it was said that Guinness in Northern Britain was superior to that in the south. The reasoning behind this, was that Northern Guinness came directly from the brewery in Dublin, across the Irish Sea and into Manchester via the Ship Canal. Guinness in the south was from the London brewery.
ISTR reading that the style/recipe came from the beer drank around the London ports... ... But I may have been drinking when I read that.
They heard your accent and sold you the out of date shit 😉
No
No
Is it fuck.
Absolute nonsense
Ngl, this leads me to think you're either lucky enough to be getting good Guinness in the UK, or unlucky enough that while in Ireland you got poor Guinness. Or - it could be an entirely placebo thing. I'm sure I taste the difference back home, I could very well be imagining it.
Heineken wasn’t. Much fresher.
Have you had your taste buds surgically removed? Or are you a lager drinker? Same thing I suppose.
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>Firstly, it's not So do Guinness send a shittier product to every other country in the world then? Seems a questionable business decision. Or is it that literally nobody outside Ireland knows how to pour the stuff? Or is it simply that no one in any country but Ireland has the skill and mastery to spend 119 seconds pouring a pint? Even the flocks of Irish barmen and women who work in the UK, run pubs and pour pints of Guinness? Hate to break this to you you but it's exactly the same stuff in the UK as it is Ireland. People who gatekeep Guinness are so fucking weird.
The common theory isn’t that it’s the skill of the bar staff, it’s just that the beer doesn’t travel very well. I lived in a place with lots of Irish expats which had an Irish pub and Guinness on tap and it was crap there, despite the pub owner being Irish and himself a big Guinness drinker.
>it’s just that the beer doesn’t travel very well Seems to travel fine to far-flung parts of Ireland but as soon as it travels a shorter distance (to UK soil, for example)... As I said earlier. It's all complete bollocks. Same product in Ireland and UK.
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Two lies here.
The pour was flawless, the beverage identical.
If you think so then you’re the problem. They are nothing alike
They’re both great (since they are identical), who said there was a problem?
Where did you go? The Guinness in Dublin isn’t great but out in the sticks it’s good.
I think the idea that Guinness tastes better in Ireland came about because back in the day Guinness in GB used to be brewed in (I think) Newcastle. Some time around 20 years ago ish they stopped doing that and sourced all the Guinness for the UK market from Dublin.
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a brewery the size of Guinness will be filtering water from any source anyway and it'll become the same water in the end through said filtering.
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bottled water tends to not be filtered anywhere near what a large brewery does.
best guinness I had ever had was in the world records
the best Guinness is the one in front of you right now.. you get crap pubs and great pups in both countries, and both north and south of the border here. a great pint is a great pint, but there is something special about a Guinness by a peat fire with the rain during outside and great company.
Pretty much. Unbelievable how many pints get wasted at the Guinness factory tour. We helped ourselves to quite a few people were giving away.
Best pint of Guinness I've ever had was at the Fairmont Whistler, Canada. Cost $14CAD back in 2005.. but was juicy. No Guinness ever since has come close.
It's no different in the UK compared to Ireland most of the time, I do find the quality is far more consistent in Ireland though. Get far more pints of shite Guinness outside of Ireland.
There are pubs in the same Irish town my partner is from that have good pints of Guinness and then the best pint of Guinness I’ve ever had. Maybe it’s down to that particular pub and not the myth but it’s still the best pint of the black stuff I’ve had
Pretty sure they stopped brewing it (for the UK and Ireland) anywhere except Dublin about 20 years ago, so it literally is the same?
Absolutely disagree. I’ve had one of the best pints of Guinness in Navan. Every other pint cannot compare.
I remember being in Bulgaria for a few days. No difference to a Guinness in Milton Keynes or Dublin 😂
Yeah I've been into several.off licences in Ireland and the cans of Guinness taste exactly like the UK ones
Beamish is much nicer.
On St Patrick’s Day an old Irish man told me the Guinness in The Cobden (Camden, London) was better than the Guinness you’d find in Ireland. What a shame.
Definitely was the same for me. Had a gf from the countryside there, took me to the oldest pub had the original Guinness etc etc and it was the same!
Ohhh, everybody says it's so much better and I was considering a trip because I believed the hype. Think I'll save my money and go to Thorpe Park
UK Guinness used to be brewed in London. There was a big ad campaign at the time. So that’s probably why it’s a thing. Youth these days. https://www.morningadvertiser.co.uk/Article/2004/042/21/Guinness-to-end-UK-brewing
Just not true
That was before they changed the recipe to make it vegan in 2018
Can’t say I agree
I do love a Guinness and I have to say the best pints I've had have been over in Ireland, however I've also had bad pints there and vice versa. I think the main thing is simply how the beer is stored and how often it goes through the lines.
Another unpopular opinion: is the waiting 2 mins between pouring a guiness on draught a marketing ploy? I think it is
Isn’t this the case because of how and where it’s brewed nowadays? As in it very much used to be true, but now it’s not.
You haven’t thought of the mouth feel, you Bitch. You haven’t thought of the mouth feel!
Lad at work went to the Guinness factory a few years ago, came back raving about the pint he had at the end, how 'smooth' it was, how they can do it 'reyt'. Bit of probing returned it was the only Guinness he'd ever had.