What did Guinness do for us?

[admin]

Following on from a conversation Rossa and I had in Connolly Station Bar on Good Friday, we agreed there's a bit too much bad press surrounding Guinness in these circles, so much so that the good things often get overlooked. Maybe it's time we looked at those?

1. Guinness saved us from a lot of bad beer. Fact is Guinness bought out lots of breweries, but contrary to popular belief not all small independent Irish breweries produced good beer. Hely Dutton wrote in 1808 of County Clare "The beer or ale of this county is a most abominable compound, indeed not worse than the trash made in almost every part of Ireland" (it doesn't stop there!)

2. Were the first to really use science into brewing. At one point in the 1800s Beamish & Crawford was the biggest brewery in Ireland, five times the size of Guinness, yet journals noted that their beers could vary greatly from pub to pub in Cork, whereas Guinness ales, which were being transported from Dublin were very consistent, as Guinness were using early microscopes to examine yeast health.

Other topics include great conditions for workers, shaping of the Dublin streetscape, supporting Irish barley farmers, etc.

[johnrm]

Seeing as how one of my regular guests is a Guinness fan and has not taken to my 'Chocolatey' Stout I shall be brewing a G clone shortly.

Funny, as soon as I mention homebrewing, I hear very little from the Lager drinkers, but the Stout drinkers are always interested in a sample!

[Eoin]

Sanitation? And the streets are safe at night?
Or was that the Romans?

[Bazza]

What did Guinness do for us?

They gave me black stool   


-Barry

[DEMPSEY]

What did Guinness do for us?

They gave me black stool   


-Barry

[Eoin]

I think they put Ireland on the map, every foreigner you have ever meet is aware of Guinness, it is (whether we like it or not) our national drink.

If you asked people from anywhere what comes into their mind when you say Guinness, they would say "Ireland" 'cept maybe not in Nigeria where they have their own very large brewery.

[nigel_c]

All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?

[mr hoppy]

Foreign extra stout.

Yum. 

[DEMPSEY]

All right... all right... but apart from better sanitation and medicine and education and irrigation and public health and roads and a freshwater system and baths and public order... what have the Romans done for us?

they gave us Fiat 500's

[delzep]

Foreign extra stout.

Yum. 

Special export stout

Even yummer

[Ciderhead]

They make it snow every year at midnight on Christmas Eve 

[JimmyM]

They gave us a man on a surf board, inspiring christy moore... oohhhhhh goodbye to the port and brandy... lets hear ya.

That fella dancin around a pint.... di deee de - di deee di de deeee de deeena....

[Ciderhead]

What did Guinness do for us?

They gave me black stool   


-Barry

And lingering, green morning mist, room clearing farts, something that became all too evident immediately after the smoking ban was introduced

[Eoin]

Oh yeah, a fish on a bike.....

[JimmyM]

di deee the - di deee di the deeee the deeena....

Haha the forum has a dub filter on it - it switched my D-E for T-H-E - thats not how the song goes.
lets try another one...

"Greetings sir, may I enquire about your day"

I actually typed "S-t-aaa-ry bud" above!!