A Brief History:
Beer is the world's oldest and most popular alcoholic beverage, and as such, needs to be enjoyed properly. With an extensive list of activities associated with beer, such as playing cards, darts, beer pong, quarters and other games; attending beer festivals; or just drinking it; it's no wonder that beer outsells wine four to one!
That said, pouring beer is an art, and a huge part of the overall tasting experience. Here we'll demonstrates the most common pouring technique for most beers.
Remember, "Practice makes Perfect".
(You can always just drink the beer straight from the bottle/can/hose/bong/etc.)
!!! ALWAYS DRINK RESPONSIBLY !!!
This Instructable will demonstrate the art of pouring beer.
Beer is the world's oldest and most popular alcoholic beverage, and as such, needs to be enjoyed properly. With an extensive list of activities associated with beer, such as playing cards, darts, beer pong, quarters and other games; attending beer festivals; or just drinking it; it's no wonder that beer outsells wine four to one!
That said, pouring beer is an art, and a huge part of the overall tasting experience. Here we'll demonstrates the most common pouring technique for most beers.
Remember, "Practice makes Perfect".
(You can always just drink the beer straight from the bottle/can/hose/bong/etc.)
!!! ALWAYS DRINK RESPONSIBLY !!!
This Instructable will demonstrate the art of pouring beer.
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An Overview:
Enjoying a beer at its best involves 3 key components; the Beer, the Glass and the Pour.
Supplies Needed
1) Cold Beer (This is very delicious)
2) A Clean Glass (This is very important)
3) A Bottle Opener (Thanks acaz93)
Optional Supplies
Drinking Buddy (This is a good person)
NOTE: I used Paint.NET for most of my illustrations.
Enjoying a beer at its best involves 3 key components; the Beer, the Glass and the Pour.
Supplies Needed
1) Cold Beer (This is very delicious)
2) A Clean Glass (This is very important)
3) A Bottle Opener (Thanks acaz93)
Optional Supplies
Drinking Buddy (This is a good person)
NOTE: I used Paint.NET for most of my illustrations.
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Draught Guinness is special, and needs to be poured correctly. Essential to this is the Guinness glass with its tulip shape. Unfortunately in my experience this you cannot get Guinness in this glass in the US. You can only get 'straight' sided glasses.
If you have the correct glass as shown below the proper procedure is to place the glass against the tap tilted to a 45 degree angle. Start the pour by pulling down sharply on the tap until it is fully open. If you do this too slowly too much head will form later on so be quick. Pour down along the side of the glass. Continue pouring at this angle until the glass is a little less than half full then slowly tilt the glass back to 90 degrees as you pull the glass away slightly from the tap. You should be just finished reaching 90 degrees as you reach the top of the first part of the pour. The first part ends on the bottom of the harp on the glass i.e. the line between the head and the liquid rests on this point (see pic 4). Leave your pint aside until it is FULLY settled.
I know its a pain and you want to enjoy your pint right now, but why not enjoy watching it settle instead and marvel at how Guinness is in fact a deep red and not 'the black stuff' as it is often called.
For the second part of the pour bring the now settled pint to the tap. Place the tap into the pint just to below the head (you actually don't really need to do this, just make sure its less than an inch of distance between the head and tap so as to cause as little disturbance to the settled first part as possible). Press the tap away from you so as to fill the glass slowly. Do not pull it down and fully open as you did when pouring the first part. Finish your pour as the head comes up to the top of the glass and sits nicely as shown in the second pic below. The 'perfect' head on a pint of Guinness is as shown here too, just above the harp to the top of the glass in thickness.
Let this settle before supping any of it.
There you have it, the perfect Guinness pour. Enjoy!!!!
If you haven't got the proper glass then its hard to form the head and your pint wont keep a proper head the whole way down. If you have those 'straight' sided glasses a trick that helps is to move the glass towards and away from the tap as you do the first part of the pour. This 'upsets' the pint more and causes more head to form. Finish the pint in the same way.
If you really really want to you can do the artsy shamrock thing which is where you pour the second part of the pour while moving the glass in the shape of a shamrock so that the head has a shamrock imprint on it. For this you wouldn't place the tap into the pint, you would keep it just above the head.
Bottles or Cans of Guinness don't need this fancy pour, just pour it as you would any other beer. This is because the kind folks at Guinness invented a little plastic ball called a widget that goes in the can to do all this work for you.
Good Guinness should not taste like coffee, if yours does then something is wrong. Also the head on a good Guinness should 'stick to the glass'. I don't know how to explain this other than when you finish your pint the glass should not be clean, it should be kinda white like the last picture below.
That about covers Guinness, possibly the hardest beer in the world to get a good pint of.
PS someone else tried to explain it on ehow. Maybe its better than my attempt. http://www.ehow.com/how_4784821_pour-a-guinness.html