MaryZ is right...the true Guinness you can't get this side of Ireland! Certainly if you want a taste find a place where it is on tap (as opposed to bottles). However, nothing like drawing a pint in Dublin. And as others say it is indeed dark and stout. I got onto this actually while in the UK but now favor the flavor. It is an acquired taste, though, especially for those who are used to light beers.

Ozarks Bill

Adam, in answer to your question last night, they are all beers. Stout is a top fermented beer and therefore part of the ale family. It is very dark in colour, almost black, due to the use of burnt malt. Harp is a lager and Smithwicks is an ale.

Make sure you give your Guinness the "tap" test to see if it's ready to drink.

Take a Euro coin and tap on the side of the glass. If you hear a "dull" sound, your Guinness has yet to settle. If you hear a "sharp glass" sound, your Guinness has settled (all the air has come to the top), and it's ready to drink. ((b))

Siobhanp - the canned Guiness you get in Ireland must be different from what we get in the States -- the Guinness in a can here is as bad as the American slop Coors etc.. they call beer -- I drink nothing but beers from micro breweries in the states - Oh yea coming to Ireland next Monday (9/20)
for a good guinnes. Also thanks for all your helpful information.
Lizard

I disagree about canned Guinness. Although it isn't what you get on tap in a Dublin pub, to compare it to Coors is a travesty. There is absolutely no comparison. The monster breweries don't really put out any beer that compares to the micros in the states, there are some fine imports. Fullers London porter is quite good, you've got to have Orkney's Skull Splitter if you like barleywines and consider a Flag Porter if you can find it. Great stuff!!

Have fun in Ireland. Next year, in late September plan a trip to Denver for the GABF (Great American Beer Festival). An ENORMOUS selection of microbrews!

Bill

Try Irish Single Malt Whiskeys from the small, independant distilleries. Pubs generally carry a selection. Don't tell Sheila I said this, but there are some that prefer Irish single malt to the Scottish variety :)

If you find connemara whiskey there, try it. It's a very nice single malt.

Bill

wopjazz
to each his own taste or lackthereof - ha ha just kidding - thanks for all your help in planning my trip
lizard

budman - what's with the tap test ?
nobody does that !

Lizard, we would keep a few cans arounf the house of Guinness to offer guests etc. Mostly we buy a case at Christmas time. Maybe the canned stuff is nicer here in Ireland but it certainly nothing like a weak coors light!

To be homest most Irish people will tell ypou the best guiness is in the countryside in an old pub. It never tastes as nice in Dublin and we are convinced its the taps that are cleaned less often make it taste better!

Adam: As a non-Guinness drinker, I was worried I'd have to learn to like it in Ireland. Upon finding out that I liked Sam Adams, Penn Pilsener, Sierra Nevada in the states, Budman correctly steered me to Smithwicks. As one poster correctly noted, when you order it, say "Smithicks".

Questions:
Ron--okay educate me a bit more now that you have on stouts---what makes a lager a lager and an ale an ale
O'reily--you say to try single malt whiskies from small independent distilleries, how would I know something was from a small independent distillery?

Amelia: You give me hope that I'll find a stout I can 'relate' to since I like Sam Adams. Thanks for the tip, I think it will be helpful for my traveling companions too.

From what I understood Guinness is a Malt Beer and has a heavier malty taste. I used to live near the Brewery and god it smelled like bread baking one day and pretty awdful (Burning malst) the next. I still get a whif occasionally where I am living. It's a weird smell but not unpleasant when they are brewing.

I thought the difference between beers and ales was what was used to make it into alcohol i.e malt, hops etc and age. Am I wrong?

Adam, basically the difference is in the yeast. An ale is produced at higher temperatures (~room temperature) by a yeast that will float to the top during fermentation. A lager is produced at lower temperatures (~10C) by a yeast that will sink to the bottom during fermentation. Higher temperature brewing (ale) produces more fruity, floral flavours, while the cool temperature brewing (lager) subdues the formation of these flavours.

And since people who drink beer increasingly don't seem to like the taste of beer, lagers are coming to dminate most markets.

Ale= Beer made with ale yeast (Saccharomyces cerevesia), often with a fruity aroma caused by fermenting at warmer temperatures.
Lager= Beer that is fermented cool using lager yeast (Saccharomyces carlsbergensis) and stored cold for a period of weeks in order to give it a clean smooth flavor. From the the German verb meaning "to store".
Stout -- (a strong very dark heavy-bodied ale made from pale malt and roasted unmalted barley and (often) caramel malt with hops)

Be sure to try a Smithwick's (the "w" is silent) and an Irish coffee! Smithwick's just became available in the US, but I don't think it's everywhere. Luckily it's here in Chicago where I live. Mmm...

One of the interesting things about beer is that there is naturally an assumed association between color, depth of flavor, and alcohol content. In other words, incorrectly there was an assumption that Guinness packed a punch where wimpy, colorless American lagers didn't.

This is precisely how Budweiser got a hold of the market internationally. It realized why there would be a sales problem. It sent its representatives out into the field to tackle pub owners, taking them out to dinner but insisting on only Bud products to drink throughout the evening. When the contact made the follow-up call the next day to a poor pub owner with a terrible hangover, he/she would make the statement: "Forgot to warn you--just because it doesn't have color doesn't mean it doesn't have muscle--this stuff is far more powerful than Guinness" or something like that. Therefore, the bar owner would pass that tip onto his customers, and everyone would want to try the flavorless things just to see.

Of course, I'm not suggesting that all dark beers have low alcohol content. Make sure that if one has three "Arrogant Bastard" drafts, one employs a driver.

Amelia makes a good point. In fact, there is a class of low alcohol (ABV less than 3.5%), dark, flavoursome beer in the UK, becoming harder to find, called mild ale. Thwaites Mild, from Blackburn, Lancashire is an excellent example.

fascinating stuff---the information you have shared.

amelia, my son and I were in a Belgium restaurant last December in Philadelphia with our wives. We had fun ordering our "Arrogant Bastards" on tap, and our waitress said that she just loved asking the bartender to give her "a couple of Bastards." ((a)) ((b))