What beer are we drinking this week? Episode 3

BeerNut

It's fairly well documented so I don't know where you saw it first, but here's a video of the two-part pour in action in its final days, clinging on in Belfast in the early 1970s:
https://twitter.com/BBCArchive/status/994930711185494017

Hotblack Desiato

Geoblocked? and is that two part pour different from what they now call the two part pour? I seem to recall hearing that some old cask would be poured on top of the fresh cask.

Would have been interesting to ask my dad (b.1920) about the 'good old days' pre-nitro but his devotion to the nitro keg pint and the Rothmans didn't help his longevity.

Sophia S.

Shiner Bock

Hotblack Desiato

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

Geoblocked? and is that two part pour different from what they now call the two part pour? I seem to recall hearing that some old cask would be poured on top of the fresh cask.

Okay, I can view it on my phone but not my laptop (?!?, and yes, I'm a tech) and he calls it porter but he's really talking about stout, just traditionally poured.

Porter was always a different drink, weaker too, no surprise as working men were expected to drink it throughout their working day.

I'm surprised that the drink he describes survived that long, was there resistance in the northern markets? if Guinness had been able to convert the Dublin pint drinker, none more conservative, by 1965 then why not everyone else.

The Dublin Pint Drinker(tm) realised that the "new stout" had the advantage that he only had to wait the (fake) 90 seconds delay for his nitro pint. If that video is to be believed, either all pre-nitro drinkers had incredible patience or bar owners had a supernatural ability to plan ahead for demand.

Me skeptical...

When I'm forced to drink a Guinness product it's a pint bottle of stout off the shelf

L1011

BBC archives outside the UK have ads and silently fail with Adblock as far as I remember.

Northern markets still drink Harp in big volume - they're slow to change!

BeerNut

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

he calls it porter but he's really talking about stout, just traditionally poured.

Not true. Guinness Stout gradually took the place of Guinness Porter following the Great Gravity Drop of 1917. Stout fell to Porter strength and Porter fell to a very low gravity that nobody really wanted to drink, except, for some reason, the shipyard workers in Belfast. Both Stout and Porter were poured on the two cask system pre-1959, then Stout went to nitrokeg, and you can see the Stout keg font in the video. But that last vestige of Porter seems to have retained the archaic two-cask system in Belfast for another decade. IIRC Guinness finally ceased brewing Porter in 1979.

Hotblack Desiato wrote: »

If that video is to be believed, either all pre-nitro drinkers had incredible patience or bar owners had a supernatural ability to plan ahead for demand.

Me skeptical...

Fair enough, but it's true and, as I say, well documented. The two-cask system was an Irish oddity and it was only got rid of when Guinness decided they wanted to sell draught beer in Britain. They knew it would never fly and so came up with nitrokeg as a way of recreating traditional draught Guinness Stout in a single space-age system.

L1011

I'd need to remember my Kindle account details but I think in that Kearns oral history book of Dublin pubs (the one with *that* Pintman picture) there are people who remember ordering their next as soon as starting drinking the one handed to them when it was two cask.

It was printed in the 1990s but the research collection goes back at least 10 years more and some of the subjects were born in the 19th century so they were remembering 1920s/30s era onwards.

noby

L1011 wrote: »

there are people who remember ordering their next as soon as starting drinking the one handed to them when it was two cask.
.

Only anecdotal evidence, but I was told about certain pubs in our area that stocked stubby bottles of Guinness (~330ml, I guess) that people would order while waiting for their first pint to be poured.

Hotblack Desiato

Thanks for the porter info BeerNut. Interesting to see that Guinness changing their product while pretending they haven't isn't at all a recent thing

In a pub which was in any way busy, the barman presumably just "kept 'em coming" and topped off as required. The delays might occur in a place which was quiet.

I can see the 90 seconds thing being shortened or more or less done away with in future, few people (outside of here!) know or care about how stout was served in their grandfather's time, people are getting more impatient and it's not as if the modern two part pour does anything anyway.

BeerNut

noby wrote: »

stubby bottles of Guinness (~330ml, I guess)

Half pint, surely? 330ml beer bottles arrived during my drinking lifetime. The bottles of lager I started out drinking were 275ml or thereabouts.

noby

BeerNut wrote: »

Half pint, surely? 330ml beer bottles arrived during my drinking lifetime. The bottles of lager I started out drinking were 275ml or thereabouts.

Yeah, my brain knew 330ml was wrong. Half pints probably, but they were in stubby bottles (not sure if they called them stubbys, or had they a different name. I must ask).
Not widely available - just in a couple of pubs outside the town it seems (maybe a fisherman thing?)

L1011

Fisherman and dockers often had odder drinking habits; back home a common one was a half (rarely Guinnes but often Smithwicks; Bass or Time back in the past) very much after a whiskey. Still see some of the older lads doing it. Other areas and the older lads wouldn't be seen dead with a half!

Back on topic - I'm going down to buy whatever the shop has in the fridge, so probably Wunderbar and Dublin Blonde as they don't put the rest of their middlingly-acceptable range in for whatever reason.

BeerNut

noby wrote: »

they were in stubby bottles (not sure if they called them stubbys, or had they a different name. I must ask).
Not widely available - just in a couple of pubs outside the town it seems (maybe a fisherman thing?)

Presumably they would have been bottled by the pubs themselves or a local distributor (didn't you tell me once Power's of Dungarvan ended up as a Guinness bottler?) so whatever size fitted the market, I guess.

OOnegative

Uiltje’s Miss Hooter, nothing to strong in this weather!!

RasTa

A good few spots have opened up at Beavertown event. White Hag snuck in somehow

noby

BeerNut wrote: »

Presumably they would have been bottled by the pubs themselves or a local distributor (didn't you tell me once Power's of Dungarvan ended up as a Guinness bottler?) so whatever size fitted the market, I guess.

We had two bottlers in the town, but yeah this might have been bottled by the pub themselves.

sceach16

BeerNut wrote: »

Presumably they would have been bottled by the pubs themselves or a local distributor (didn't you tell me once Power's of Dungarvan ended up as a Guinness bottler?) so whatever size fitted the market, I guess.

I have c300 labels from different pubs who bottled guinness but there are others who have around 1000! The potential pool of guinness bottling pubs could be anything up to 5000 (guess).

Uncle_moe

Had a can of nor cal west coast ipa by fourpure and was pleasantly surprised because it actually tastes quite like what you'd expect from a west coast style ipa. Great balance of bitter and sweet so not like a very old school ipa but also not at all like a lot of the soupy teeth achingly sweet offerings that are all the craze at the moment.

BeerNut

Uncle_moe wrote: »

Had a can of nor cal west coast ipa by fourpure and was pleasantly surprised because it actually tastes quite like what you'd expect from a west coast style ipa. Great balance of bitter and sweet so not like a very old school ipa but also not at all like a lot of the soupy teeth achingly sweet offerings that are all the craze at the moment.

It's a macro now. Down the sink with it.

Uncle_moe

BeerNut wrote: »

It's a macro now. Down the sink with it.

Fair play to them. Let's hope the quality remains but I'm sceptical.

irish_goat

noby wrote: »

Yeah, my brain knew 330ml was wrong. Half pints probably, but they were in stubby bottles (not sure if they called them stubbys, or had they a different name. I must ask).
Not widely available - just in a couple of pubs outside the town it seems (maybe a fisherman thing?)

If you're ever in the Carlsberg bottle collection in Copenhagen they have an interesting collection of stubby Guinness'.

St. Lupulin

8 Degrees Seisiún IPA is quality stuff.

Reminds me of Fyne Ales Avalanche....I miss that beer.

Hotblack Desiato

A litre glass* bottle of Harp with a screw top, really?

I'm sure it tastes even better after an hour or two, or the next day!

And Draught Guinness bottles, the ones with the squirty syringe thing!!! My dad said he didn't like them, but that may have been an excuse to continue to go to the pub instead of having a pint at home...


Edit: It might even be PET. I think by the time PET bottles were common on the Irish market, most people knew better than to drink Harp I'd expect a glass bottle to not have as sharp an angle between the neck and the cap.

Keedowah

I recently visited here: http://treehousebrew.com/ and took home about 20 cans. Unreal stuff. Amazing brewery to visit.

Redsoxfan

Anyone know if you can get anything decent in the bar in the Croke Park Hotel?

sceach16

Redsoxfan wrote: »

Anyone know if you can get anything decent in the bar in the Croke Park Hotel?

I got a ticket for the All Ireland there last year ! More seriously, it is a very ordinary (perfectly ok) bar in terms of beer selection.

Creamy Goodness

The most craft you’ll get there will be a smithwicks ipa/blonde.

OOnegative

Anybody recommend somewhere in Kenmare for few nice pints/bottles? There for few days next month.

umop episdn

Tom Crean ... bottles...24 bottles for €15 can't complain .

sceach16

umop episdn wrote: »

Tom Crean ... bottles...24 bottles for €15 can't complain .

I can complain......where and when?