when did guinness stop being guinness

tony300+

i have been a guinness drinker for 25 years. latley it just tastes like cold-black-water to me. i remember when it used to be creamy,bodied and you could nearly take a bite out of it. now i find it just tastes like cold ???????????????? everywhere. can some body please tell me what happened.:(

Black Swan

Across the pond we get Guinness from different brewery sites. Personally, I like the taste of St James Gate better than that brewed at New Brunswick, Canada. Then again, maybe I'm just missing Dub?

mobby

tony300+ wrote: »

i have been a guinness drinker for 25 years. latley it just tastes like cold-black-water to me. i remember when it used to be creamy,bodied and you could nearly take a bite out of it. now i find it just tastes like cold ???????????????? everywhere. can some body please tell me what happened.:(

Your not drinking it in the right places

tony300+

mobby wrote: »

Your not drinking it in the right places

yes i am. its not the pub that changed but the stout

marozz

I agree. It's vary hard to get a decent pint. At some stage they started selling
Guinness extra cold - I reckon to try and attract a younger market. There used to be a choice - two different taps- but now most pubs just seem to sell the cold Guinness.

actuallylike

Cold beers (ice cold) are generally a sign of a poor beer. Rocky Mountain cold just means you don't taste the muck that it is. I think Guinness started to lose it's quality when they introduced all the Extra Cold Promotions.

tony300+

marozz wrote: »

I agree. It's vary hard to get a decent pint. At some stage they started selling
Guinness extra cold - I reckon to try and attract a younger market. There used to be a choice - two different taps- but now most pubs just seem to sell the cold Guinness.

agreed. ithink when they said they withdrew the extra cold crap-they didn't.
i think they replaced the original product with it.
THANKS DIAGIO:mad:

Technocentral

The more popular and aimed at a mass market it is the more bland a beer becomes, on the other hand their Extra Stout and especially Foreign Extra Stout are the ones you should be drinking, they still have retained their flavours as they're aimed at the minority of drinkers who go for flavour over marketing. or if you find your place in a decent pub that has a proper selection go for O' Haras, Dungarvan or Trouble Brewing, much more flavoursome alternatives to the 'oul bland draught Guinness.

Pat Mustard

marozz wrote: »

At some stage they started selling
Guinness extra cold.

This.

They took our Guinness away and left a cold changeling in its stead. And we smiled and slapped each other's backs and pretended that the cruel trick was not true.

We were played for fools, gentlemen.

rcaz

Technocentral wrote: »

O' Haras, Dungarvan or Trouble Brewing

Or Galway Bay! Their Stormy Port is fantastic.

Though O'Hara's Leann Folláin is my favourite beer going at the moment. Is it available on tap? I tried the whiskey cask version at the festival in the RDS but I'd like to try the normal stuff from a keg.

Had a few bottles of Leann Folláin while watching Venetian Snares downstairs in Twisted Pepper. That was a night to remember.

Cavehill Red

Guinness is freezing cold, fish-slops containing muck masquerading as beer.
Go drink a proper stout and quit torturing yourself. 25 years is far too long to drink crap beer.

Seaneh

marozz wrote: »

I agree. It's vary hard to get a decent pint. At some stage they started selling
Guinness extra cold - I reckon to try and attract a younger market. There used to be a choice - two different taps- but now most pubs just seem to sell the cold Guinness.

Guinness Extra Cold is the exact same beer as normal Guinness, it's just, eh, colder. They didn't jig the recipe at all, they just installed a more powerful cooler.

Lovely Bloke

Guinness hasn't changed.

Get a pint bottle, off the shelf, or a Foreign Extra from a drink shop.

Guinness is still a decent tipple, just not freezing cold with nitrogen pumped into it.

rubadub

TheNinthGate wrote: »

Guinness hasn't changed.

Is this just a guess or have you read statement from them to that effect?

When I started drinking ~20 years ago you always heard about it being a "acquired taste" and many would baulk at it. I do believe it has got blander or something. I found it very surprising on arthurs day to see so many people drinking it. They had many other taps blocked off in the venues but there were alternatives I expected people to go for, esp. women. And none appeared not to like it when tasting it, a common sight when I was young.

http://www.britishfoodinamerica.com/Our-First-Irish-Number/the-lyrical/A-note-on-Guinness-Foreign-Extra/#.ULYKX1L_LwE

in 1981, Guinness changed its recipe for stout to make it lighter, weaker, ‘more drinkable’ and therefore less interesting in response to competition from unworthy lagers.

http://beeradvocate.com/articles/662

So when we heard that Fergal Murray, one of the company’s head brewmasters...

Brewing Process
Guinness Draft. Mysterious, ain't it?Murray explained that the recipe for Guinness has undergone only minor adjustments over the years.

http://www.streetdirectory.com/food_editorials/beverages/beer/guinness_beer_brewing_industry.html

There are many times when the original recipe of the Guinness beer has changed its composition. This change can occur for many reasons.

the beer revolu

OP, maybe your tastes have changed?
I used to love Guinness but now might enjoy one pint, after that it tastes very thin and nasty to me.

Likewise when I was younger, I could sit down and drink a bottle of cheap red wine watching a video, without food. Now I rarely enjoy wine without food.

Just a few years ago, I was adamant that any beer over 10% just didn't work; now I have no such prejudices - some I like, some not.

I've also acquired a taste for cask ales - something I considered bland, flat and warm in the past.

Our tastes change with experience but also as we age - maybe you've just outgrown Guinness and need to explore a little. It is a good time to explore beer.

Cavehill Red

rubadub wrote: »

Is this just a guess or have you read statement from them to that effect?

When I started drinking ~20 years ago you always heard about it being a "acquired taste" and many would baulk at it. I do believe it has got blander or something.

I'm not allowed to go into too much detail about this, due to a non-disclosure agreement. But I can confirm that the taste profile of Guinness changed significantly in the past two decades in ways that some people would likely describe as 'blander.'

Herb Powell

I am far too young to say if Guinness has changed, but I enjoy bottled Guinness off the shelf a lot more than the draught nitro-tap Guinness

munchkin_utd

Cavehill Red wrote: »

I'm not allowed to go into too much detail about this, due to a non-disclosure agreement. But I can confirm that the taste profile of Guinness changed significantly in the past two decades in ways that some people would likely describe as 'blander.'

in a parallel world, Erdinger did the same with weissbier in Germany which allowed it to crack the larger marker in the rest of Germany outside of Bavaria (80million population compared to 12million at home).
Sure Erdinger now have an "Urtyp" original recipe Weissbier that is good for a compare and contrast as to HOW watery a beer can become over time!

And Germanys favourite beer type pils actually is no longer the eyewateringly bitter earwax like delight torture that it originally was but especially in the last decade the breweries are falling over themselves to screw back the bitterness levels so much that it's now questionable as to whether what they are selling is Pils at all.

Anyhow, all this tweaking of the flavours is simply to sell more beer and its far from just Guinness that is at it.

the_syco

Seaneh wrote: »

Guinness Extra Cold is the exact same beer as normal Guinness, it's just, eh, colder. They didn't jig the recipe at all, they just installed a more powerful cooler.

The colder it is, the less you can taste it :pac:

pitythefool

marozz wrote: »

I agree. It's vary hard to get a decent pint. At some stage they started selling
Guinness extra cold - I reckon to try and attract a younger market. There used to be a choice - two different taps- but now most pubs just seem to sell the cold Guinness.

Extra cold in noe more, its just cold and if pubs want they can have a warme tap but that is up to themselves

pitythefool

Seaneh wrote: »

Guinness Extra Cold is the exact same beer as normal Guinness, it's just, eh, colder. They didn't jig the recipe at all, they just installed a more powerful cooler.

More antifreeze?

Seaneh

the_syco wrote: »

The colder it is, the less you can taste it :pac:

it's nitro'd so it's already near impossible to taste it anyway, making it colder makes bugger all difference at that stage.

schemingbohemia

Black Swan wrote: »

Across the pond we get Guinness from different brewery sites. Personally, I like the taste of St James Gate better than that brewed at New Brunswick, Canada. Then again, maybe I'm just missing Dub?

I was fairly sure that all Guinness is now brewed in St James Gate, they stopped brewing abroad a couple of years ago, no?

Seaneh

schemingbohemia wrote: »

I was fairly sure that all Guinness is now brewed in St James Gate, they stopped brewing abroad a couple of years ago, no?

no.
Not at all.

The biggest guinness brewery in the world is in nigeria, they also brew in Indonesia, Canada, and a handful of other countries.

I think it might even be brewed in England.

pitythefool

schemingbohemia wrote: »

I was fairly sure that all Guinness is now brewed in St James Gate, they stopped brewing abroad a couple of years ago, no?

The Guinness we drink is brewd here, abroad they get it from their nearest depot

sham69

I have drank guinness constantly for the past 15 years.
Before that I drank Heineken.
I havent touched guinness in about 6 months, due to my stomach (have developed IBS and Guinness seems to set it off.)
I did notice though in the last few months that I was drinking it that it was quite flat and very cold.
This was in different pubs, I just wasn't enjoying it as much as I used to.
Even my Dad who has been drinking it for over 50 years has changed to lager recently.
Something has definitely happened in the past year or so...

Like someone else said, as I get older I find myself trying different things.
I am addicted to ale for the past couple of years.
I try different ones from the tesco 5 for 10 euro range.
I am not crazy about the Irish ones to be honest, some of them are ok.
Galway Hooker is nice, don't like the o'hara's stuff at all.
I like the anything from the wychwood brewery, hobgoblin, scarecrow and Marstons's pedigree to name but a few.
I would never have been brave enough to try these in my teenage drinking years.

I used to love a nice creamy pint of Guinness but that does seem to be hard to come by lately.
I do remember when I worked as a barman that the pint was always a bit thinner in the winter due to the cold.
You always got a better pint in the summer IMHO.

youcancallmeal

Seaneh wrote: »

it's nitro'd so it's already near impossible to taste it anyway, making it colder makes bugger all difference at that stage.

This! The introduction of extra cold Guinness was when it jumped the shark. They had a different nitrogen/CO2 mix and when they got rid of extra cold the normal Guinness seemed to retain this style, all I can taste when I drink Guinness now is the Nitrogen. There is a nasty chemical/metallic bang off it.

I was in East Africa a few years ago and everyone was drinking Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, beautiful stuff. Seems very hard to get over here

BeerNut

Seaneh wrote: »

I think it might even be brewed in England.

No, Park Royal closed in 2008. Draught Guinness is brewed in high gravity form and while the stuff for the Irish market is diluted to drinking strength in the brewery, the Draught Guinness for the UK and US is shipped out to be diluted and kegged abroad.

I'm not sure about Draught Guinness for other countries. The Canadian brewery/breweries (I've heard there's two) make Guinness Extra Stout -- the 6%ish ABV version as distinct from Irish Guinness ES. Guinness Nigeria, and I'd say most of the foreign breweries, doesn't brew the 4.2% ABV Draught Guinness.

I would guess that if you're drinking a pint of Draught Guinness anywhere in the world, the chances are it has come from Dublin, albeit in high-gravity form.

BeerNut

youcancallmeal wrote: »

I was in East Africa a few years ago and everyone was drinking Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, beautiful stuff. Seems very hard to get over here

The Nigerian version can be got in some of the African shops, I'm told. Irish-brewed FES can be found in most any supermarket or off licence.

munchkin_utd

youcancallmeal wrote: »

This! The introduction of extra cold Guinness was when it jumped the shark. They had a different nitrogen/CO2 mix and when they got rid of extra cold the normal Guinness seemed to retain this style, all I can taste when I drink Guinness now is the Nitrogen. There is a nasty chemical/metallic bang off it.
<snip>(

slight tangent, do Irish pubs have different gasses for guinness and lager or do they just use the mixed gas for both rather than a separate line of pure CO2 for the lagers?

Only asking as Irish draught lager to me always has a hateful metallic taste off it that I put down to the brewing methods.
Is it the shaggin gas the whole time so that is wrong?..... EVERYWHERE!

pitythefool

munchkin_utd wrote: »

slight tangent, do Irish pubs have different gasses for guinness and lager or do they just use the mixed gas for both rather than a separate line of pure CO2 for the lagers?

Only asking as Irish draught lager to me always has a hateful metallic taste off it that I put down to the brewing methods.
Is it the shaggin gas the whole time so that is wrong?..... EVERYWHERE!

Some pubs have a fifty for guinness and a 100 for lager

Others have a one mid level gas with a nitrogen boost for certain gases

BeerNut

The gas mix is different for nitrokeg but I think they pretty much all use some proportion of nitrogen. I'm not sure straight CO2 is used very much at all.

the beer revolu

munchkin_utd wrote: »

in a parallel world, Erdinger did the same with weissbier in Germany which allowed it to crack the larger marker in the rest of Germany outside of Bavaria (80million population compared to 12million at home).
Sure Erdinger now have an "Urtyp" original recipe Weissbier that is good for a compare and contrast as to HOW watery a beer can become over time!

And Germanys favourite beer type pils actually is no longer the eyewateringly bitter earwax like delight torture that it originally was but especially in the last decade the breweries are falling over themselves to screw back the bitterness levels so much that it's now questionable as to whether what they are selling is Pils at all.

Anyhow, all this tweaking of the flavours is simply to sell more beer and its far from just Guinness that is at it.

On a similar note, I find that Schneiderweiss Original (Tap 7) seems to have been blandified as well - not nearly as spicy and clovey as it was IMO.
Anyone else?
Avintinus too.

rubadub

sham69 wrote: »

Even my Dad who has been drinking it for over 50 years has changed to lager recently.

Did he try any other stouts out there? This reminds me of the thread with the strange loyalty people seem to have for guinness. If I am in the mood for a stout I have switched to beamish myself, all the recent ones I have had are grand and tasty. I notice more people drinking it now too, possibly a combination of it being cheaper so people are trying it, and then copping on it is as good or better than guinness. A lot of people must be feeling the pinch, I heard of a life long bud drinker switching to tuborg.

sham69

he lives in ashbourne so unfortunately there is not much choice when it comes to draught beer.
He has been drinking tuborg lately which he loves.
He swears its not due to the cheap price but down to the taste
Before that he drank Carlsberg when he fancied a lager so its not that odd.
Tuborg seems to be selling quite well..

pitythefool

rubadub wrote: »

Did he try any other stouts out there? This reminds me of the thread with the strange loyalty people seem to have for guinness. If I am in the mood for a stout I have switched to beamish myself, all the recent ones I have had are grand and tasty. I notice more people drinking it now too, possibly a combination of it being cheaper so people are trying it, and then copping on it is as good or better than guinness. A lot of people must be feeling the pinch, I heard of a life long bud drinker switching to tuborg.

Tuborg is a lovely beere once you get passed the stigma, its nice and clean and not filled with chemicals like fosters

The Danes got this one right

5 pints for €15 in my local

BeerNut

In Denmark, even though Tuborg and Carlsberg are made by the same company in the same brewery, they both have equal status in the market. Deciding that Carlsberg is premium and Tuborg is budget seems to be a decision Diageo made just for Ireland.

pitythefool

BeerNut wrote: »

In Denmark, even though Tuborg and Carlsberg are made by the same company in the same brewery, they both have equal status in the market. Deciding that Carlsberg is premium and Tuborg is budget seems to be a decision Diageo made just for Ireland.

Thank you diageo

pastorbarrett

It's unlikely, but I'd love if Guinness offered something in the way of a more traditional stout on tap, in addition to draught. Perhaps to do so would be an admission in respect of a change in flavour profile. Something a little bit more bitter sweet, and a stronger ABV. But yeah, I can imagine it being a niche market. Come to think of it, I'd welcome seeing Murphy's/ Beamish in more establishments. Surely they don't need that many Bud taps...

Dermighty

If you're drinking it in Dublin then I can't explain it.

In Cork some pubs have outstanding Guinness but most don't. Same goes for Murphys (usually ok) and Beamish (to a lesser extent).

It's so hard to pin down to one thing though, cleaning the pipes, different temperatures etc.

Hope it clears up

Raekwon

I much prefer O'Hara's Stout or Porter House/Messrs Maguire Plain to Guinness as it's far to bland and doesn't have that lovely burnt hops and coffee taste that the others have.

BeerNut

meridiangroup wrote: »

It's unlikely, but I'd love if Guinness offered something in the way of a more traditional stout on tap, in addition to draught. Perhaps to do so would be an admission in respect of a change in flavour profile. Something a little bit more bitter sweet, and a stronger ABV.

The vital statistics for Foreign Extra Stout are pretty much unchanged since the 1820s. It's the beer you're looking for and they already make it. I met one of the senior Diageo bods last year and asked him why they don't make more of FES. He was confused; he said they make a huge deal of it, wide distribution, heavy advertising, big market share: how could they possibly make more of a deal of it? <pause> Oh in Ireland? Nah, nobody really buys it in Ireland: it's primarily a beer for abroad. The clue's in the name, I suppose.

Seaneh

BeerNut wrote: »

The vital statistics for Foreign Extra Stout are pretty much unchanged since the 1820s. It's the beer you're looking for and they already make it. I met one of the senior Diageo bods last year and asked him why they don't make more of FES. He was confused; he said they make a huge deal of it, wide distribution, heavy advertising, big market share: how could they possibly make more of a deal of it? <pause> Oh in Ireland? Nah, nobody really buys it in Ireland: it's primarily a beer for abroad. The clue's in the name, I suppose.

It's fairly easily got now though.

Every tescos, most dunnes, all o'brien's and a lot of carryouts.

FES is a beautiful beer.

BeerNut

Seaneh wrote: »

It's fairly easily got now though.

Every tescos, most dunnes, all o'brien's and a lot of carryouts.

But almost unknown in the on-trade for no good reason.

Prop Joe

Raekwon wrote: »

I much prefer O'Hara's Stout or Porter House/Messrs Maguire Plain to Guinness as it's far to bland and doesn't have that lovely burnt hops and coffee taste that the others have.

Belfast Black from Whitewater brewery is lush

pitythefool

Prop Joe wrote: »

Belfast Black from Whitewater brewery is lush

I have never heard of it, have you got a connect yall would be willing to share, we needs to be havin a meet prop joe

minidazzler

Dermighty wrote: »

If you're drinking it in Dublin then I can't explain it.

In Cork some pubs have outstanding Guinness but most don't. Same goes for Murphys (usually ok) and Beamish (to a lesser extent).

It's so hard to pin down to one thing though, cleaning the pipes, different temperatures etc.

Hope it clears up

In Cork I'd put it down to how much the stout actually sells. Somewhere like An Bodhran would go through a ****e ton of Beamish, while the Old Oak wouldn't. The Bodhran has better Beamish.

Even within one pub, An Brog, you get good and bad pints because the back bar doesn't sell as much stout as the front bar, given the front bar is where the day time drinkers go, who for the most part only drink stout.

pastorbarrett

BeerNut wrote: »

The vital statistics for Foreign Extra Stout are pretty much unchanged since the 1820s. It's the beer you're looking for and they already make it. I met one of the senior Diageo bods last year and asked him why they don't make more of FES. He was confused; he said they make a huge deal of it, wide distribution, heavy advertising, big market share: how could they possibly make more of a deal of it? <pause> Oh in Ireland? Nah, nobody really buys it in Ireland: it's primarily a beer for abroad. The clue's in the name, I suppose.

I hear ya Beernut-I hop off enough of this stuff as it is It's commendable that it's also increasingly widely available these days. But I was specifically referring to availability of something on tap. No doubt Guinness are very good at their numbers, but surely pushing something a bit more 'traditional', stronger ABV, 'brewhouse' etc would make more sense than golfers half strength Guinness?

BeerNut

meridiangroup wrote: »

surely pushing something a bit more 'traditional', stronger ABV, 'brewhouse' etc would make more sense than golfers half strength Guinness?

I would guess they have lots of very expensive research saying this isn't the case. A lot of publicans won't carry strong beers on draught, for one thing.

pastorbarrett

BeerNut wrote: »

I would guess they have lots of very expensive research saying this isn't the case. A lot of publicans won't carry strong beers on draught, for one thing.

Shame, really. I know they weren't radical departures (same ABV etc), but a friend who's a publican said the brewhouse series sold well (at least in his pub, anyway). But in another light, this is a great time in respect of the availability of genuine alternatives (at least in cities etc). I suppose my hope is that some of these smaller breweries will continue to make inroads, to the point where you'll be able to drop into your local two-bit boozer and not have to order Guinness/ Beamish etc if you want stout. That said, I wont hold my breath though :rolleyes:

BeerNut

meridiangroup wrote: »

my hope is that some of these smaller breweries will continue to make inroads, to the point where you'll be able to drop into your local two-bit boozer and not have to order Guinness/ Beamish etc if you want stout.

The way to achieve it is to drink the stout you want where it's already stocked. Every month more two-bit boozers get the message. Some week it'll be yours. The worst thing is to keep drinking beer you don't like: each pint you buy sends the message that everything's OK.