Monday, January 04, 2010

Old, heavy, bitter and divine


One of my pregame rituals before Nashville Predators home contests is drinking a expertly-poured pint of Guiness at Mulligan's on 2nd Avenue (there is a trick to pouring a pint o' Guiness, and the folks at Mulligans know how to do it right).

Irish novelist Colm Toibin recently penned a piece in the Wall Street Journal about his quest for the perfect pint of Guiness. It's well worth checking out. A sample:

[Guiness] became associated with Ireland in the same way as certain red wines became associated with regions of France. And because the taste was bitter, almost as if something had been burned in it, it became associated with manliness, maturity, even a sort of toughness. There were many who believed fervently in drinking a pint of Guinness entirely, or almost entirely, for medicinal purposes, assuring everyone around them that they had come to the pub for the good of their health.

Guinness is made from four natural ingredients—barley, hops, yeast and water. The dark color and the taste come from the roast barley, but the quality of Irish-made Guinness—it is actually brewed in 49 countries—is said to come from some special, fabulous ingredient in the River Liffey, which flows close to the factory at St. James's Gate in Dublin.


Read the rest here.

2 comments:

wilson said...

never cared for guiness. its like liquid bread.

Mister Jimmy said...

The bottled Guiness used to be brewed in Ireland. Now it's brewed in Canada and bears little resemblance to the 'real' thing. I think the canned variety and the bottles with the carbonater are brewed in Ireland still.