good vs. evil

[waider]

Although I am a somewhat seasoned Guinness drinker, I still occasionally find myself astounded by the chasm-like gap between a good pint and a bad pint. Hell, even between a good pint and a not quite as good pint. I am somewhat curséd in this respect, since my local serves only the former, and the nearest watering hole to the office serves at best the latter.

Comments

[waider.livejournal.com]

Not to disagree with you overmuch, but there are a few pubs in Boston which do a passable job, and a nice girl from Galway served me quite a drinkable pint at Cannery Jacks (which I understand has since burned down or something) I don't even know that the unpasteurised comment applies any more - they went all-pasteurised on the bottled product back in 1992 or so, and a good thirty seconds of googling suggests that the Real Ale people look down on guinness on account of both its being pasteurised and tainted with that nasty nitrogen stuff.

The short version of "The Pour", as recently described on a series of beermats: fill the glass at an angle, so the beer runs down the inside of the glass. Stop somewhere around the two-thirds full mark, and put it aside to settle. Settling should take in the order of two and a half minutes, after which you top off the pint by pushing the tap rather than pulling it (I'm not clear on what this does, aside from providing a slower flow which doesn't disturb the pint. When complete, there should be approximately one centimetre (half an inch) of a head. Anything larger, referred to colloquially as a Bishop's Collar, is grounds for asking for your pint to be "topped off". A good barman won't even need to be asked. Also, a good barman will fill the glass to the point of surface tension without allowing it to spill over the sides, and some more tourist-oriented places will finish the pint by moving the glass under the tap so as to produce a shamrock design on the head.

[waidesworld.livejournal.com]

If anyone is interested in getting an excellent pint this side of the pond there are quite a few establishments in the Boston area that rival a Dublin pint. That being said, it wasn't always the case. When I first landed on these shores 11 years ago, some of the crap served was more passable as donkey piss than Guinness.

My local (www.thenog.com) currently is serving an excellent pint. There are a number of factors involved. The rings on the glass is typically a sign of the cleanliness of the glass as opposed to the goodness of the pint.