Wrong place to order a Black & Tan! Input needed from some real Irishmen please.

If there's a drink called a B Special, or a Cromwell, don't ask for one of them there either.

Seems to me your friend's hosts were just arses. Despite trying to export them over the years, they never went away either, you know.

Come up to the north. We won't insult you till after you've left, we've better arses.

 

I thought I remembered Smithwicks being a Guiness product and this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smithwick's would tend to confirm that. at least after 65 which predated my consuming any significant amount of beer. I like Bass as well but I'm not sure I'd consider it superior to Smithwicks.

 

They may be again now....although the article would hint at it being a straight unbroken history since 1965 it definitely wasn't I had a lot to do with Bass Ireland and Bass sponsorship for various events 1981-85, and Smithwick's was definitely a Bass product then, they were pushing it hard for they were due to take 24 months to-re-plumb the Glen Road Bass brewery on the Glen Road in Belfast....just across the road from Gerry Adams' house...and only bottled Bass and Bass Red Heart stout was going to be available for that period. I still have a LOT of Smithwicks publicity material - posters, poster blanks, standees, t-shirt etc. from that period - pity it's worth bugger all on Ebay!

Anyway - after the Bass brewery in Belfast was re-piped ( they bought and used the old McArdles brewery in the South for the bottled Bass) they closed and re-piped the Smithwicks' Dundalk brewery...

(McArdles, only ever sold in Ireland IIRC, was better than BOTH!)

Small-world-itis at work again....I had gone to school with a pair of identical twins who's dad was a brewery plumber, and it turned out HE got the contract for re-piping the Dundalk brewey; one of the things he was asked to do was put a pipe joint and tap out through one wall of the main brewhouse from the bottling circuit - an old 80 year old Smithwicks' employee, long retired, lived in a house adjoining the plant and the tap was to be in his living room!

Anyway, some time after this Diageo must have bought it back; it's also possible that it was THEY sold it to Bass in the first place for the duration of Bass Ireland's redevelopment work. Apart from whatever money changed hands - Diageo got a replumbed Dundalk brewery out of it!

(...and Guiness had never been able to make a decent ale in their own breweries! They could just about handle cat's piss....I mean Harp Lager...but a good ale escaped them)

 

Last night at choir practice my friend said the name of the pub where the incident took place is called TJ Macs and is in the town of Mullenahonne. Not sure if the spelling is right, but that's what he said. Seems like the name of the pub is a play on words and taken from the TJ Maxx clothing store, but I can and have been mistaken. Any of the real Irish people here on the forum been there?

He also said that it took some time after ordering and actually drinking the Guinness. The barkeep poured a little, let it sit, poured some more, let it sit, then topped it off before delivery, about 3 pours in all and about 5 minutes before taking the first sip. Is that the usual process over there?

 

http://chronicle.augusta.com/news/business/2014-03-16/bartenders-discuss-pouring-guinness

 

Three to four minutes??? Bloody hell....

I've seen bar tenders take 20 minutes to pour a pint of Guiness, letting it settle at least twice along the way. Up to YOU to order it early enough

 

Most of the pubs I drink in have certificates from Guinness stating that the bar stuff have been properly trained to pour the stuff.

 

That must be why y'all can drink that strong beer all night without getting sh1t faced then.

 

Guinness is not strong beer. Its 4% alcohol by volume (Bud is 5%). What makes it unique is that instead of using hops to bitter it, they burn the barley before malting so that the burnt barley shell is what is actually balancing the malt. Then, just to be nuts they use nitrogen (instead of CO2) to "carbonate" it - it's actually nitrogenated, not carbonated. Nitrogen makes much smaller bubbles which gives it that creamy texture, but it's only creamy if it's drawn correctly. It won't taste good if just dumped in a glass like lager. It has to be drawn slowly and at the correct temperature or it just goes flat. and that is why an Irish bartender might give you some attitude if you take their nations finest product and insist on ruining it by dumping it in a glass with some cheap lager.

Think about it like this. Walk into a certain Nawlins establishment and order a muffaletta, but tell them to scrape all the olives off and put it on Wonder bread instead of a focaccia roll. They'll probably make it for you, but they'll think you're an idiot and that's going to come across.

 

Couple of years back I visited St James' Gate in Dublin and did the whole tourist thing. The free pint your ticket entitles you to at the end was absolutely gorgeous, like a milk shake.
This is a good drop o' beer-
http://www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/118/402/

 

When I was biking in Ireland a couple of decades ago the name of one of the towns we stopped at was spelled at least two and I think three different ways on the signs leading into town. My impression is that the Irish don't get real hung up on "correct" spelling.

Back on Guiness when did they start using Nitrogen? Certainly the original Guiness didn't. I don't seem to recall much about that until the beginning of this century. Nitrogen shouldn't produce as acidic a beverage as CO2.

 

Its all I drank last Saturday at a reunion..guinnes not blavk and tan...yes it can take longer to pour barstaff being busy they tend not to pour it properly and come back to it...it like milk to me..if your on a bender it lines the tummy better than bitter or lager
Black and tan....well ive drank it in mainland..snakebite is better though..but I dont think id mention black and tans in conversation in Ireland...but your barman friend was being an ass. Mind you do a search on the town..see if the barstewards dud any atrocuty in lical area...black and tans were not army for those that dont know...they were barstewards of the first order...

 

I never heard of the term (or the drink) until reading this thread.

Does seem to carry some historical baggage in the Republic though

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Black_and_Tans.

I can see how the barkeep might 'bow up' a bit

 

One can make a case for the Black and Tans being one of the main reasons that the Republic of Ireland exists or at least came into existance when it did.

 

Road signs display everything in both Irish and English, for no real reason other than to employ more sign-makers and confuse the unaware...

eg into assuming that each and every motorway exit leads to exactly the same place.
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Ahh historical baggage.
There are some who hoik it like the handlers at airports; there are those who carry it with universal contempt like pack animals on long expeditions.
Then there are the Irish, the sherpas of historical baggage, who will carry more than anyone else, with greater expertise, and will take it to greater heights, ... just because it’s there.

 

I don't know when it started, but it's not about acidity at all. It's about mouth feel. Nitrogen bubbles are much smaller, so they stay in the beer and give it a creamy texture. That's the whole point of Guinness. That's what makes it different than a hundred other porters brewed around the planet. Unfortunately, to get that texture in the glass is kind of difficult in this country because most bartenders don't have a clue. The beer is usually over chilled and poured much too fast to allow the nitrogen bubbles to stay in the beer.

 

Acidity can have an impact on texture as well. I remember getting some very good pints at an Irish Pub in DC back in the late 80s. I'm wondering if the Nitrogen was in it then or if it's a more recent development.
Some interesting info at:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness

Looking at http://www.cooksinfo.com/nitrogenated-beer it looks like they started earlier than I thought:

 

That is, as they say, somewhat of an understatement...

No Irishman wrote that

 

I think I later found the site that came from and it was an "official" Guiness historical page.