Film, Media & TV3 mins ago
Guinness
Since my company are sending me to Dublin this weekend, I feel duty bound to sample a couple of pints of the black stuff while I'm there.
I've been asked by my boss to bring some back - sorry if this sounds odd, but is there really a significant difference in taste between the Dublin and UK versions and would this also apply to bottles and cans?
I know that Guinness is brewed using local water supplies, but the taste issue has often intrigued me. Slainte!
Answers
No best answer has yet been selected by lodekka. Once a best answer has been selected, it will be shown here.
For more on marking an answer as the "Best Answer", please visit our FAQ.The reason it applies to cans is the same reason the pub stuff is different, the can's we have here have been brewed in this country using the UK water, the cans in Ireland have been produced in the Irish brewery.
Guinness is not made from Liffey water and the company themselves state that in blind tests you can't tell the difference between products brewed in different countries.
http://www.guinness.com/guinness/en_GB/knowing/pearls/faqs/0,6415,125495_126325,00.html
My own view is that you used to be able to tell the difference but a recent visit to Ireland left me thinking that this had changed.
From Ireland myself, we used to call Guinness "Liffey Water" as a joky reference to the colour/state of the river rather than implying it was made from the water.
My brother and brother in law have lived in England several years now, and whatever the Guinness website claims about there being no difference; their first stop is the local for a pint of the real mccoy.
You could try bringing the draught Guinness cans home as they are as close to an Irish pint as you're likely to get. Why not set up a blind test at your local with them.
slainte
I drink Guinness both in Scotland and Ireland. So far I have never noticed the difference. The best Guinness I have ever tried was in an Irish bar in or near Dunedin, Florida. I was owned by an ex pro footballer, Alex ........, who once played for Hearts I think. It was poured by a Belfast born barmaid. Proving, I think, that it is all in the handling and storage. All views welcome.
Slainte math
I have always believed that there is a difference, but it's all a matter of individual taste.
I've always found Guinness in Ireland to be nothing short of the elixir of life, but not quite up to the mark in mainland UK.
The only place I have ever consumed it where it was on a par with Ireland is in Berlin, in the Irish Bar and the Irish Harp, oddly enough! That sort of dispels the rumour that Guiness 'does not travel well'.
Bloody hell I'm gagging for a pint from Ireland now!