Are Guinness about to leave Dublin?

We first reported on this issue 12 months ago and as their review of Irish operations nears an end, speculation is rife that at least a portion of the Dublin site will be sold off for property development. Should nostalgia and sentimentality be part of their decision or is the balance sheet more important?

 

This should teach the tourists how it works…

As any bartender in Ireland knows, whenever a tourist orders a Pint of Guinness, there is a strong likelihood that they will take the drink while it is settling on the bar. Many is the time I had to call back the unsuspecting tourist so I could top up their Pint. Guinness have always used the “waiting game” as a marketing tool and so their new beermat continues this tradition!

Want to know how to Pour the Perfect Pint of Guinness? Barkeeper.ie has prepared a Training Manual on the subject. You’ll find it HERE 

 

Ways to get rid of 450 stolen kegs

There were ripples of laughter heard throughout many pubs during the week at the thought of 450 kegs being driven (read: stolen…) out of the Guinness Brewery in Dublin in the middle of the day and away into the distance.

But what can the opportunistic and brazen thief do with a truckload of Guinness, Budweiser, Carlsberg and Harp?

Well, we’ve put our heads together and come up with some suggestions, starting with the most obvious:

1. Drink them. the average shelf life of a keg is 40-60 days, meaning the thief/thieves will have to drink at least 7.5 kegs a day (660 pints) before they start to go bad.
2. Sell them to Publicans at a reduced price. But how likely is it that this could take place on the scale needed to shift all kegs without Guinness reps/line cleaners/delivery men spotting something odd?
3. Sell them back to Guinness at a reduced price…(unlikely)
4. Hold a Keg Throwing Competition. It has already been done though. Check it out here
5. Melt them down. With the increasing price of steel, these kegs could fetch a pretty penny on the black market. No joke. Check out more here
6. Give them as Christmas presents. You will need a lot of friends though, who are willing not to ask any questions.
7. Make 225 classic beer garden benches with the aid of a plank of strong wood atop two kegs. 225 benches might arouse suspicion though.
8. Reverse the truck back into the brewery (again in broad daylight) as if nothing ever happened. (risky…)

Any other ideas….? One cynical blogger reckons this could be a very clever marketing ploy by Guinness. After all, could they have achieved this level of exposure for €64,000 any other way?

 

Got a spare $1000 for lunch? or maybe dessert?

There seems to be a race to the top in Manhattan, New York at the moment with chefs trying to outdo each other for the accoldae of the world’s most expensive dishes.

This week, both the humble bagel and ice cream sundae have been offered on menus in New York with price tags of  $1000 each. Interested?

Check out the Bagel here

Check out the Ice Cream Sundae here

The ice cream sundae has now broken the Guinness World Record for the most expensive dessert!

 

Can you match Beer with Food?

Beer is often overlooked as an accompaniment to food, being considered more of a social drink in itself.  But many a good meal can be enhanced by pairing it with the appropriate beer.

We came across this great website during the week that lists plenty of suggestions for food and beer pairings.

 

Wrong approach to find sympathy for Publicans?

Is it just me or is all the furore over providing a rural transport scheme being apporached from the wrong angle? The following comments have appeared in the press lately:“The VFI argued that people in small communities are unwilling to use their cars to travel to their local pubs because of Garda checkpoints and it is cutting them off from a vital social link.”

I am the first to agree that rural communities and businesses struggle to make a living when relying on such a heavily regulated and now heavily policed industry, however it seems to be forgotten that it is not random breathtesting on it’s own that is stopping people leaving their houses, it is the combination of drink driving and random breathtesting that is the problem.

I think Roisin Shortall TD summed up the impression that many now have of th erural pub industry when she asked during the Oireachtas Committee meeting on the subject:

“As a people, why are we so dependent on alcohol for our sanity? People in other European countries manage to get by without going to the pub every night”

While we can’t expect to be able to change rural drinkers into tea-totallers or change a national culture of pub going, can we not improve the image of the industry by stressing the importance of social interaction, community spirit rather than the daily requirement of rural dwellers to drink more than the legal drink-driving limit in order to make it worthwhile leaving their houses? There should be more to a Pub than a Guinness tap, and I am a firm believer that the more a Pub can offer in addition to alcohol, than the more sympathy and support rural publicans will receive.

Rome wasn’t built in a day admittedly….

 

Uncomfortable alliance in the Storehouse?

Visited the Guinness Storehouse recently and have to admit that it’s come on amazingly since first opening six years ago. In the beginning I got the impression that the former fermentation plant was unsure of what direction to go off in as an exhibition centre boasting the best of Uncle Arthur.
But now the displays are becoming much more streamlined so that traversing the lengths and breadths of each of the seven floors becomes an empirical learning process to provide you with a stout reservoir (sorry) of knowledge on Uncle Arthur’s legacy and its latter-day ramifications.
Ireland’s Number One visitor attraction is topped off with the 360 degree view of Dublin via the Gravity Bar, the head on the pint-shaped project, if you will, which must have taken a fair dent out of the €30 million it cost to put the Storehouse together.
But as I stood in the Gravity Bar sipping my pint and admiring the view over to the Phoenix Park Monument and even Croke Park after an afternoon touring the Guinness facility, I couldn’t help wondering if the Storehouse represenented an uncomfortable attempt to mate the old with the new, the traditional with the contemporary.
Surely a venerable brand like Guinness and all its paraphernalia should be housed in something much more traditional in spirit rather than the steel and glass construct that functions as the Storehouse?
There again, perhaps it’s just my advancing years. Does anyone else feel completely at home in the Storehouse in relating the building to the brew?