Guinness Draught Can // 440ml // Co-op / everywhere // £4.89 4 pack
I've been going through a Guinness phase. It started in February of this year when I went to a cousin's wedding in Ireland. I must have drunk, ooh, I don't know a hundred pints of it in four days. Slight exaggeration but I did drain at least thirteen pints on the last day. And how did I feel? Outstanding. I feel like if it was my life's work I could hone myself to drink fifty pints of it and still perform open heart surgery.
It's just like drinking cream. But I don't find it heavy like some people say, a double cream. I find it a single cream. A chilled black single cream. Some say it's bitter. Not me. There's a certain chalkiness but mostly, for me, it's a blank flavour. More a silk sheet. I don't want to get into "mouth feel" (gross) but it's a silk sheet in the mouth. That sounds unpleasant, like you'd be reaching for the panic button, gasping for air. I'm just trying to say that it's v drinkable. Like cray cray drinkable. Moreish might be the word. It's a drinker rather than a dweller. Toss back that black blank single cream silk canvas.
This can was the last remnant of a 4-pack procured from Co-Op in Heaton Moor. On offer she was. Something shy of a fiver. My early 2015 Guinness surge petered out a long while back but there's been a renaissance of late. Entirely in the realm of home drinking I hasten to add. It's my go-to everyman when one can't afford to maintain oneself in craft from the bottle shop. Especially of a weekend (warrior) when it's a pricey business topping up one's tan on pure speciality brews. Interval session stuff between the high grade watermarks.
The Spar in the northern quarter was charging £7+ for a four-pack a while back. I didn't buy it. Undeterred I held out for a more pertly priced punnet later down the line. I haven't pinted Guinness in a pub for ages. Though, if the beer range is less than inspiring in a normcore pub then having the ability to speak Guinness under your belt is a great card to play in your locker.
Anyone ever spliced a can of draught Guinness open to take a look at the widget? Forbidden fruit, my friend. How many days after did you die? Surprised that Kirsty Allsop hasn't threaded a widget bangle, or statement widget necklace in her dumpster diving crafting sessions. I’m near groaning with embarrassment about the can indentation in the picture above that shows that I "squeezed" the can on pouring. Had to get that last quenelle of crema out didn't I. I'm no better than those oiks at the O2 Apollo that upend £4.50 cans of Red Stripe into plastic pint pots. You know what else I do? I tap cans before opening them. I got ripped for it on a recent Port Street / Common excursion. It's force of habit. Born of tapping dishevelled Coke cans frustrated from their vending machine fall. If it even works, which is doubtful. It's too ingrained to stop doing it, I'll forever feel a wave of disappointment wash over me post-tap.
FYI, I was going to go to Piccadilly Tap to review Cloudwater's Dark Lager but it was rammed when I walked past. Would I rather a chalice of high grade craft than a bog scraping major brewery everyman? A thousand times yes, I can’t emphasise that enough but I’m not above sailing the deep seas of the lesser good.
I enjoy how a can of Guinness fits perfectly in the IMBC 15 glass. It's almost like they were made for each other. Let's hold out for a Guinness stand at next year's Indy Man Beer Con. CAN YOU IMAGINE.