I Love Guinness..

Guinness stout is made from water, barley malt, barley, hops, and brewer's yeast. A portion of the barley is flaked (i.e. steamed and rolled) and roasted to give Guinness its dark colour and characteristic taste. It is then pasteurised and filtered.

Draught Guinness and its canned counterpart contain nitrogen (N2) as well as carbon dioxide. Nitrogen is less soluble than carbon dioxide, which allows the beer to be put under high pressure without making it fizzy. The high pressure of dissolved gas is required to enable very small bubbles to be formed by forcing the draught beer through fine holes in a plate in the tap, which causes the characteristic "surge".

The perceived smoothness of draught Guinness is due to its low level of carbon dioxide and the creaminess of the head caused by the very fine bubbles that arise from the use of nitrogen and the dispensing method described above. "Original Extra Stout" contains only carbon dioxide, causing a more acidic taste..

Arthur Guinness started brewing ales initially in Leixlip, then at the St. James's Gate Brewery, Dublin, Ireland from 1759. He signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum for the unused brewery.

Ten years later on May 19, 1769 Guinness exported their product for the first time, when six and a half barrels were shipped to England.

Although sometimes believed to have originated the stout style of beer, the first use of the word stout in relation to beer was in a letter in the Egerton Manuscript dated 1677, almost 50 years before Arthur Guinness was born. The first Guinness beers to use the term were Single Stout and Double Stout in the 1840s!

What Diageo calls the "perfect pint" of Draught Guinness is the product of a lengthy "double pour", which according to the company should take 119.5 seconds. Guinness has promoted this wait with advertising campaigns such as "good things come to those who wait".

Ideally a pint of Guinness should be served in a slightly tulip shaped pint glass as opposed to the taller European tulip glass or 'Nonic' glass which contains a ridge approx 3/4 of the way up the glass. On the way to the tap, the beer is passed through a chiller and is forced through a five-hole disc restrictor plate in the end of the tap, which increases the fluid pressure and friction, forcing the creation of small bubbles which form a creamy head. The glass is then rested until the initial pour settles, and the remainder of the glass is then filled with a slow pour until the head forms a slight dome over the top of the glass.

This tradition comes from when Guinness was served from the cask, and initially older beer was poured into a glass until it was 3/4 full, then left to stand. When ordered by the customer, the glass was topped up from younger, gassier beer, producing the traditional head. As the beer is no longer blended from different ages of beer, the double pour is no longer required for the mixing of beers but is still maintained as it produces a better pint as the head does not over fill the glass and need to be discarded.

Guinness uses the harp of Brian Boru as its trademark. This harp from approximately the 14th century, which is on view at Trinity College, Dublin, has been a symbol of Ireland since the reign of Henry VIII (16th century). Guinness adopted the harp as a logo in 1862; however, it faces left instead of right, as in the Irish coat of arms.

Guinness has a long history of marketing campaigns, from award-winning television commercials to beer mats and posters.

Guinness's iconic stature is partly due to its advertising. The most notable and recognisable series of adverts was created by Benson's advertising, primarily drawn by the artist John Gilroy, in the 1930s and '40s. Benson created posters that included phrases such as "Guinness for Strength", "Lovely Day for a Guinness", "Guinness Makes You Strong," "My Goodness My Guinness," (or, alternatively, "My Goodness, My Christmas, It's Guinness!") and most famously, "Guinness is Good For You". The posters featured Gilroy's distinctive artwork and more often than not featured animals such as a kangaroo, ostrich, seal, lion, and notably a toucan, which has become as much a symbol of Guinness as the harp. (An advertisement from the 1940s ran with the following jingle: "Toucans in their nests agree/Guinness is good for you/Try some today and see/What one or toucan do.") Dorothy L. Sayers, then a copywriter at Benson's, also worked on the campaign; a biography of Sayers notes that she created a sketch of the toucan and wrote several of the adverts in question. Guinness advertising paraphernalia, notably the pastiche booklets illustrated by Ronald Ferns, attracts high prices on the collectible market.

In the late 1980s and early 1990s in the UK there was a series of humorous adverts featuring Rutger Hauer.

The 1994-1995 Anticipation campaign, featuring actor Joe McKinney dancing to "Guaglione" by Perez Prado while his pint settled, became a legend in Ireland and put the song to number one in the charts for several weeks. The advertisement was also popular in the UK where the song reached number two.

In 2000, Guinness's 1999 advertisement Surfer was named the best television commercial of all time in a UK poll conducted by The Sunday Times and Channel 4. This advertisement is inspired by the famous 1980s Guinness TV and cinema ad, centred on a surfer riding a wave. The 1980s advertisement not only remained a popular iconic image in its own right but also entered the Irish cultural memory through inspiring a well known line in Christy Moore's song "Delirium Tremens". Surfer was produced by the advertising agency Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO; the advertisement can be downloaded from their website.

Guinness won the 2001 Clio Award as the Advertiser of the Year, citing the work of five separate ad agencies around the world.

In 2003 the Guinness TV campaignTemplate:Deadlinks featuring Tom Crean won the gold Shark Award at the International Advertising Festival of Ireland, while in 2005 their Irish Christmas campaign took a silver Shark. This TV ad has been run every Christmas since 2003 and features pictures of snow falling in places around Ireland, evoking the James Joyce story The Dead, finishing at St. James's Gate Brewery with the line "Even at the home of the black stuff they dream of a white one".

Their UK commercial "NoitulovE", first broadcast in October 2005, was the most-awarded commercial worldwide in 2006 In it, three men drink a pint of Guinness, then begin to both walk and evolve backward. Their 'reverse evolution' passes through an ancient homo sapiens, a monkey, a flying lemur, a pangolin, an ichthyasaur and a velociraptor until finally settling on a mud skipper drinking dirty water, which then expresses its disgust at the taste of the stuff, followed by the line "Good Things Come To Those Who Wait". The official name of the ad is "Noitulove"-which is "Evolution" backwards. This was later modified to have a different endings to advertise Guinness Extra Cold, often shown as "break bumpers" at the beginning and end of commercial breaks. The second endings show either the homo sapiens being suddenly frozen in a block of ice, the ichthyasaurs being frozen whilst swimming, or the pool of muddy water freezing over as the mud skipper takes a sip, freezing his tongue to the surface.

Guinness's 2007 advert, directed by Nicolai Fuglsig and filmed in Argentina is titled "Tipping Point". It involves a large-scale domino chain-reaction and, with a budget of £10m, is the most expensive advertisement for the company so far.

Guinness Beef Stew

2 lbs Chuck/Shin Beef
6 Rashers Bacon
2 tblsp. Dripping/Butter
2 onions (large)
3 cloves of garlic
¼ cup plain flour
1 cup beef stock
1 cup Guinness(Stout!!)
3 carrots
2 bay leaves
1 tsp. fresh thyme
6 prunes
2 tbsp. chopped parsley
Chop onions, crush garlic and slice carrots. Cut meat into small chunks. Cut prunes in half and remove the stone. Fry onions in dripping. When golden brown add crushed garlic. Cook for 1 minute.
Remove onion and garlic from the frying pan and put aside. Add meat to remainder of dripping in pan and fry until meat is brown on all sides. Reduce heat and add flour. Coat the meat with the flour and add stock slowly to form a thick sauce. Add Guinness and simmer. Add onions and garlic and carrots, herbs and season with salt and pepper. Stir all ingredients simmer for 1-2 hours.

Don't cover. This gives it a thick sauce. Stir occasionally so that the meat doesn't stick to the bottom of the saucepan. Add the prunes a half an hour before the end. Garnish with parsley before serving. This dish can be prepared the day before and reheated gently before serving.

Steak & Guinness Pie

1 kg Round steak
1 tbsp Flour
1 tsp Brown sugar
1 tbsp Raisins (optional)
5 Onions
300 ml Guinness
8 Slices bacon
3 oz Lard
Chopped parsley
Recipe of Short Pastry

Cut the steak into bite sized cubes, roll in seasoned flour, and brown in the lard with the bacon, chopped small. Place the meat in a casserole, peel and chop the onions, and fry until golden before adding them to the meat. Add the raisins (if wanted) and brown sugar, pour in the Guinness, cover tightly and simmer over a low heat or in a very moderate oven (325-350 deg F) for 2-2 1/2; hours. Stir occasionally, and add a little more Guinness or water if the rich brown gravy gets too thick. Meanwhile, line a deep pie dish with half the pie crust: bake it blind: then add the Guinness/beef mixture from the casserole, cover with the top layer of pie crust, and bake until finished, probably about 10 more minutes. Variation: for the brown sugar, substitute 3 tbsp honey.

Makes 4 servings.