Today, September 24th, is the 284th birthday of Arthur Guinness, a man celebrated by beer lovers around the globe. December 31st, 1759, 250 years ago, Arthur Guinness signed a lease on a rundown brewery in the edge of Dublin.
Arthur Guinness paid a hundred pounds for a nine thousand year lease, paying five pounds a year. The Guinness family ran the Guinness brewery until 1986. The Guinness brewery merged with Britain’s Grand Metropolitan P.L.C to form Diageo P.L.C. in 1997.
Guinness, a dry stout ale, is quintessentially Irish, like the music and the cold wet weather. It is a one of a kind brew, dark in the glass, going down the throat like a milkshake. In this writer’s informed opinion, no other beer compares.
Guinness may be an acquired taste for Americans who are too used to the lighter, less robust beers that are brewed domestically. One coworker this writer shared a Guinness with suggested that it had the flavor and viscosity of low grade motor oil. The coworker was uncultured when it came to beers, preferring something a little less challenging.
The best Guinness this writer ever had was a couple he had at a music club called Rockefellers, which no longer exists, a night that the Chieftains played. Rockefellers was an intimate venue, with tables right up against the stage and lithe waitresses squeezing between to serve up the freshly poured stout. The cool, dark brew, the sound of the harp, the fiddle, and the pipes brought the spirit of the Auld Sod more than anyone could experience without actually going.
Guinness, besides being one of life’s great pleasures, is a business and a highly successful one too. What started as a small, brewery has become a world-wide conglomerate. Ironically more pints of Guinness are drunk outside of Ireland than within. Ten million pints of Guinness are drunk world-wide every year.
Guinness first came to the United States in 1817, but only became popular in the last twenty years. While Guinness is brewed around the world, the Guinness drank in the United States is brewed at the original brewery at St. James Gate, Dublin, and using hops, barley, yeast, and the water that comes down from the Wicklow Mountains, considered pure enough for brewing Guinness.
Guinness has been celebrated in song and story, it being an Irish drink, for generations. Flann O’Brian, the 20th Century Irish poet, referred to Guinness as the “pint of plain” and celebrated it in his poem, The Workman’s Friend
“When things go wrong and will not come right,
Though you do the best you can,
When life looks black as the hour of night –
A PINT OF PLAIN IS YOUR ONLY MAN.”
A birthday party celebrating the founder of Guinness, Arthur Guinness, will take place in Dublin, featuring the Black Eye Peas, Tom Jones, and sixty other performers. Jasmine Guinness, a model and socialite heir to the Guinness name, will officiate.
For those who intend to raise a pint in celebration of the birthday of Arthur Guinness, there is an art to pouring a pint. according to Fergal Murray, Guinness master brewer.
Take a clean, dry, twenty ounce glass.
Hold the glass at a 45 degree angle, never letting the spout touch the poured beer or glass.
Fill the glass slowly until about three quarters of the way.
Allow the nitrogen bubbles to settle down the glass and back up the middle to form the head.
Resume filling the glass, making the head dome shaped.
The time to do all of these steps is said to be 119.5 seconds if properly done.
Drink and enjoy. Slainte!
Sources: Guinness celebrates 250th birthday, Alan J. Heavens, Philadelphia Inquirer, September 24th, 2009
The Workman’s Friend, Flann O’Brien
