Ireland: Guinness – The Perfect Pint

Catie learns the tricks to pouring the perfect pint of Guinness!

Pouring and Serving

An example of the newly designed Guinness pint glass released in 2010.

What Diageo calls the “perfect pint” of Draught Guinness is the product of a “double pour”, which according to the company should take 119.53 seconds. Guinness has promoted this wait with advertising campaigns such as “good things come to those who wait“. Despite this, Guinness has endorsed the use of “Exactap”, marketed by DigitalDispense USA LLC, owned in a trust by its American inventor. The “Exactap” is the fastest beer dispense system in the world and can deliver a perfectly presented Guinness, with no overfilling, in just 4 seconds. There are over 600 “Exactaps” in use in Dublin stadia alone.

Draught Guinness should be served at 6°C (42.8°F), while Extra Cold Guinness should be served at 3.5°C (38.6°F).

A pint of Guinness should be served in a slightly tulip shaped pint glass(as opposed to the taller European tulip glass or ‘Nonic’ glass, which contains a ridge approx 3/4 of the way up the glass). To begin the pour, the server holds the glass at a 45° angle below the tap and fills the glass 3/4 full. On the way out of the tap, the beer is forced at high speed through a five-hole disc restrictor plate in the end of the tap, creating friction and forcing the creation of small nitrogen bubbles which form a creamy head. After allowing the initial pour to settle, the server fills the remainder of the glass until the head forms a slight dome over the top of the glass.

In April 2010, Guinness redesigned the Guinness pint glass for the first time in a decade. The new glass is taller and narrower than the previous one and features a bevel design. The new glasses are planned to gradually replace the old ones.

(information taken from Wikipedia)