The guinness variations, Part Two

The details: Guinness Extra Stout, 4.2% ABV, served via draft into an imperial pint glass (and also a plastic cup - keep it classy Flannery's)

Week two of my experiment to find the best method for drinking Guinness. It's been an interesting week to say the least, and my experiments have yielded interesting, if not unexpected, results.

If you missed last week's letter about bottled Guinness Extra Stout, I'd recommend taking a moment and going back to read it first. Not that it's some amazing bit of prose, but it's a pretty solid setup for where I'm going this week. This week I've left packaging behind. This week, it's all about draft Guinness.

I started my (seriously totally scientific) experiments last Saturday. I took the train into the city to go watch the Spurs match at Flannery's on 14th Street. Some of you may remember me mentioning/writing about them when I talked about beerstone, and it's been quite some time since I've had draft beer there. The bar manager has been really good about getting some craft cans when he can (or when he remembers), but this past weekend there was none. I decided to jump in and go for the Guinness. 

I've also been out and about a few other times this week for lunch and to see Mumford & Sons at MSG. I really got hit by something called the Baader-Meinhof phenomenon, which is fun because I never knew that it had a name. You might know this phenomenon as frequency illusion, or recency illusion - or better you might know it as the red car syndrome. It's the idea that once you're presented with an obscure bit of information you begin to see it constantly. For me, I simply started noticing that it seems that everyone has Guinness on tap. It's not often my first choice, so I hadn't been looking for it. Now that I wanted to try it as much as I could, it was super easy to find. 

So I got to test the draft Guinness at Flannery's as well as at Lillies on 17th Street. First thing to notice - Guinness is always on a nitro line. In fact, it was an employee of Guinness named Michael Ash (a mathematician, no less) that developed the method for serving. Mr. Ash figured out how to push Guinness with nitrogen (not normally found in beer), and that if you use that gas (which these days is actually a mix of N and CO2 called "beer gas") with a special creamer faucet, you get exceptionally creamy, smooth texture and head.

Good news first - the beers at Flannery's didn't upset my stomach, meaning maybe they cleaned?? But either way, the big difference in the bottled Guinness and the draft Guinness is, of course, the surge of bubbles that settle as the pint sets up and the very creamy texture and taste. That trademark slightly bitter 'bite' is always the same, and while I can't confirm this specifically, empirical data hints that draft runs closer to the 4.2% ABV side of domestic Guinness (let's just say I tried a few at Flannery's just to be sure, ok?).

So far, draft is king, which is exactly what I expected. The bigger question - will other Guinness packaging innovations measure up? Let's hope I can find some!

The verdict: 3.75 out of 5 (on Untapp'd - follow me @slownumbers to see what I'm drinking)