Guinness ,Murphys, beamish

the beer revolu

Geuze wrote: »

Can I ask a question about Guinness FES and the Special Export?

I have seen the FES in Tesco and maybe Dunnes for about 2.15. I have also seen it in Asda in NI.

But I have never seen Special Export anywhere. Where can I buy it?

AFAIK Special Export has to be, bizarrely, imported from Belgium. Specialist shops like Drinkstore or Redmonds may have it.

I always thought that SE was much more to my taste until I tasted them alongside each other and found very little between them. SE seemed a little sweeter and smoother - more like a dark Belgian beer but not much in it.

iambrazil

kkdela6 wrote: »

oh yes large pint bottle. Thats usually my choice if im in the pub for the night. I just heard that recently and when i think of it ive never had a large bottle of stout outside waterford, i remember being in killarney in a pub and they said they didnt think they still existed. but surely you can get them all over the country

I know pint bottles are available from a few different large distributors who serve Dublin and I had some not too far from Killarney recently.

I think the lack of availability in certain areas is due to people not knowing the product is still available as well as lack of demand. Also Murphy's is what locals tend to drink in Killarney according to my uncle - Guinness is for the tourists.

Diageo would certainly get a lot more of my money if Foreign Extra was sold in pubs. For a while I thought they didn't allow it to be sold in pubs but this mustn't be true. It would be great if publicans/the general public were more aware of it. If you can buy it in Dunne's and Tesco you should be able to get it in most pubs!

rubadub

kkdela6 wrote: »

I couldn't get a bottle anywhere in dublin! well out of the 4 or 5 places i visited at least :pac:

You would need to go to an auld lad pub, as the music volume decreases your chances of getting it increase. I have found most barmen do not have a clue about what they sell so would listen to them about saying it is not sold. I expect the majority of barmen would not have heard of the stouts mentioned in this thread.

iambrazil wrote: »

For a while I thought they didn't allow it to be sold in pubs but this mustn't be true.

They might not market it to pubs, but as far as I know there is nothing to stop a publican going to tesco and selling it in his pub, along with tesco cans of beer if he wanted.


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness#Varieties

Guinness stout is available in a number of variants and strengths, which include:

* Guinness Draught, sold in kegs, widget cans, and bottles: 4.1 to 4.3% alcohol by volume (ABV); the Extra Cold is served through a super cooler at 3.5°C (38.3°F).[36]
* Guinness Original/Extra Stout: 4.2 or 4.3% ABV in Ireland and the rest of Europe, 4.1% in Germany, 4.8% in Namibia and South Africa), 5% in the United States and Canada, and 6% in Australia and Japan.
* Guinness Foreign Extra Stout: 7.5% ABV version sold in Europe, Africa, the Caribbean, Asia, and the United States. The basis is an unfermented but hopped Guinness wort extract shipped from Dublin, which is added to local ingredients and fermented locally. The strength can vary, for example, it is sold at 5% ABV in China, 6.5% ABV in Jamaica and East Africa, 6.8% in Malaysia, 7.5% in the United States, and 8% ABV in Singapore.[37][38] In Nigeria a proportion of sorghum is used. Foreign Extra Stout is blended with a small amount of intentionally soured beer.[39]
* Guinness Special Export Stout, Commissioned by John Martin of Belgium in 1912.[40] The first variety of Guinness to be pasteurised, in 1930.[41] 8% ABV.
* Guinness Bitter, an English-style bitter beer: 4.4% ABV.
* Guinness Extra Smooth, a smoother stout sold in Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria: 5.5% ABV.
* Malta Guinness, a non-alcoholic sweet drink, produced in Nigeria and exported to the UK, East Africa, and Malaysia.
* Guinness Mid-Strength, a low-alcohol stout test-marketed in Limerick, Ireland in March 2006[42] and Dublin from May 2007:[43] 2.8% ABV.
* Kaliber, a premium alcohol-free lager. It is brewed as a full strength lager; then at the end of the brewing process, the alcohol is removed: 0.05% ABV.
* Guinness Red, brewed in exactly the same way as Guinness except that the barley is only lightly roasted so that it produces a lighter, slightly fruitier red ale; test-marketed in Britain in February 2007: 4.1% ABV.[44]
* 250 Anniversary Stout, released in the U.S., Australia and Singapore on 24 April 2009;[45] 5% ABV.

In October 2005, Guinness announced the Brewhouse Series, a limited-edition collection of draught stouts available for roughly six months each. There were three beers in the series.

* Brew 39 was sold in Dublin from late 2005 until early 2006. It had the same alcohol content (ABV) as Guinness Draught, used the same gas mix and settled in the same way, but had a slightly different taste. Many found it to be lighter in taste,[46] somewhat closer to Beamish stout[47] than standard Irish Guinness.[48]
* Toucan Brew was introduced in May 2006. It was named after the cartoon toucan used in many Guinness advertisements. This beer had a crisper taste with a slightly sweet aftertaste due to its triple-hopped brewing process.
* North Star was introduced in October 2006 and sold until into late 2007. Three million pints of North Star were sold in the latter half of 2007.[49]

Despite an announcement in June 2007 that the fourth Brewhouse stout would be launched in October that year,[50] no new beer appeared and, at the end of 2007, the Brewhouse series appeared to have been quietly cancelled.

In March 2006, Guinness introduced the "surger" in Britain. The surger is a plate-like electrical device meant for the home. It sends ultrasonic waves through a Guinness-filled pint glass to recreate the beer's "surge and settle" effect. The device works in conjunction with special cans of surger-ready Guinness. Guinness tried out a primitive version of this system in 1977 in New York. The idea was abandoned until 2003, when it began testing the surger in Japanese bars, most of which are too small to accommodate traditional keg-and-tap systems. Since then, the surger has been introduced to bars in Paris. Surgers are also in use in Australia and Athens, Greece. The surger for the US market was announced on 14 November 2007; plans were to make the unit available to bars only. [51] As of 2011, however hard to find, the surger is available for purchase both for bars and regular customers.

Withdrawn Guinness variants include Guinness's Brite Lager, Guinness's Brite Ale, Guinness Light, Guinness XXX Extra Strong Stout, Guinness Cream Stout, Guinness Gold, Guinness Pilsner, Guinness Breó (a slightly citrusy wheat beer), Guinness Shandy, and Guinness Special Light.

Breó (meaning 'glow' in ancient Irish) was a wheat beer; it cost around IR£5 million to develop.

For a short time in the late 1990s, Guinness produced the "St James's Gate" range of craft-style beers, available in a small number of Dublin pubs. The beers were: Pilsner Gold, Wicked Red Ale, Wildcat Wheat Beer and Dark Angel Lager.

A brewing byproduct of Guinness, Guinness Yeast Extract (GYE), was produced until the 1950s. In the UK, an HP Guinness Sauce has recently been made available, manufactured by Heinz.[52] Kraft also licenses the name for its Barbecue sauce product, Bull's-Eye Barbecue Sauce.

In March 2010, Guinness began test marketing Guinness Black Lager, a new black lager, in Northern Ireland and Malaysia.[53] As of September 2010, Guinness Black Lager is no longer readily available in Malaysia. In October, 2010, Guinness began selling Foreign Extra Stout in 4 packs of bottles in the United States. [54]

BeerNut

Geuze wrote: »

I have never seen Special Export anywhere. Where can I buy it?

Redmond's definitely have it. I'm sure a few of the other specialist beer off licences do too. It's nearly double the price of FES, though, and not worth it. Well worth picking up in Belgium and the Netherlands where it's about €1 a go, however.

redlead

BeerNut wrote: »

Dungarvan do a very nice coffee and oatmeal one for the festival circuit.

I'm a huge Dungarvan fan but I have to say that I was slightly disappointed with the coffee and oatmeal stout. Not that I didn't think it was nice, it was lovely, but I just didn't think that it was all that much different from normal Blackrock. In fairness though, I had already tried plenty of other beers before that one and my taste buds could have been shot.

Regarding the title thread, as many have pointed out, none of those three would be anywhere near the nicest stout in Ireland. Of those three I would tend to drink Beamish the most purely because it is cheaper than Guinness and they are all of a very similar quality and taste. Most pubs I go to in Dublin seem to have Beamish too. Despite what some people say, these three stouts are still quite nice and I would still enjoy them. I'd take a pint of them over a Heino or Bud any day.

On draught, it's hard beat Wrasslers xxxx, O'Hara's is lovely too.
Bottled, Black Rock and Leainn Follainn are king and by a considerable distance.

Technocentral

BeerNut wrote: »

Foreign Extra. Sorry, pet peeve.

Foreign Extra:


Special Export:


There's no Foreign Export.

I mix 50% Special Export and 50% Foreign Extra to make what I call "Foreign Export", yum.

BeerNut

Technocentral wrote: »

I mix 50% Special Export and 50% Foreign Extra to make what I call "Foreign Export", yum.

You mean Special Extra, yeah?

Technocentral

BeerNut wrote: »

You mean Special Extra, yeah?

God no, that would be disgusting.

Technocentral

BeerNut wrote: »

Foreign Extra. Great beer, and a steal at €2 a bottle from the Storehouse giftshop. The only pub I've ever seen it in is The Village. I'd be tempted if it wasn't for all the beers from Irish breweries they have as well

Is 2.25 in my local Superquinn which isn't too bad a price.