A question for Guinness drinkers
 

I have a question for all the Guinness drinkers out there. When I drink Guinness I find that I have to drink a lot, at least double, what I would of any other beer (excluding the light beers) to get drunk. I have tested this many times (at home) and have used beers with very similar alcohol content.

Does anyone else find this to be true? If so, any ideas why? I thought maybe it is their patented little plastic thing in the bottle.

I've never noticed. Guiness is not a beer I drink to get drunk since it's expensive and it's very filling. I tend to drink Guiness slower than most beers because I really enjoy the flavor. Have you tried drinking Guiness out of a tap? That would prove/disprove your "plastic thing" theory.

Well Guinness is a light beer, 4.7% if I recall correctly. But not so light as you could drink twice as much and not get drunk.

I downed 7 pints on Saturday nght and I was pretty loaded.

The plastic thingy in the bottle contains nitrogen to give the Guinness its smooth creamy mouth-feel, I doubt that it would affect the alcohol.

I'd say it's all perception. Alcohol is alcohol, whether it's delivered thru wine, beer, jello shots or Guinness.

Nope generally get drunk on Guinness like i would if i were to drink any other beer. Though i never do a whole night of Guinness, man that just too much for my belly to handle that stuff is so filling. A Guinness is more like a meal rather than a beer.

I love Guinness but have never had more then 3 at one sitting. It is way to filling to get a buzz on for me.

Guinness has the lowest alcohol content of just about any beer. Plus if you're drinking it in those bottles you're not getting the volume you would normally get. At a bar I can drink 10 pints of Guinness and feel alot better the next day than I would if I had 6 Budweisers. If I'm going for a drunk then I'll drink Icehouse more alcohol per dollar than any other beer I have found. Guinness Extra Stout is a different animal however, I haven't had one since they started selling the Draught in cans though.

Guiness tends to go down faster than most other beers for me, but that tends to be because I like it so much, and it doesn't have that fizz of other beers. I may down numerous pints or cans/bottles before I realize how buzzed I am, but I still do get buzzed.

For how thick it is, it does have a realitavely low amount of alcohol, especially considering other stouts are often higher than 7% alcohol.

I agree with most of the other posts here, Guiness just isn't a drunk beer.

It seems to me that the only real reason for buying guiness is the taste. Less alcohol, a lot thicker... It really is like a meal. Or maybe a dessert. I find it tough to have more than a couple of them. It's spendy too. If you wanna get drunk cheaper and with less filling taste, get Harp's. It's the american version of Guiness. Made by the same company.

That plastic thinghy at the bottom of the bottle is called a "Rocket Widget" it releases when you open it to give it that straight from the tap taste.

BRILLIANT!

I think it's because Guinness has a lower alcohol percentage. One Guinness definitely won't do anything to you. I finish my first one in 2 or 3 drinks because I like it so much. Definitely a weak (alcohol-wise) beer though.

Thia may sound weird, but I get kinda like, a different buzz on Guiness. You know like the difference between a tequila buzz and a wine buzz. Know what I mean?

guiness rules. arf & arf is my fave !

Guiness, at room temperature, off a tap, is like drinking water, it is so smooth and delicious. Even the bottles, with their widgets, served cold, is really good. It's the only beer i have in my fridge.

But, as it has been said before, for me, after 3 straight pints, i definetly get a serious buzz. i am not a heavy drinker but i love my guiness.

i love the guiness!!! also 80shilling and IPA! mmmmmm....
i find that i can drink more pints of guiness than i can pints of lager. i always half thought it had something to do with bubbles in lager...but then i drink stella when i drink lager, so that could explain it

Yeah Right !!!
Come to Dublin andd see if Guinness is a 'Drunk' beer or not :D :D :D

Dont know what you usually drink Stan, or the strenght of Guinness in Canada, but here in Ireland it is 4.2% abv. Not stong, but not weak either.

wanna get drunk from guiness? ask for an 'irish car bomb' some time

Which is what exactly, please excuse my ignorance.

if you order one, the bartender will hand you a half pint of guiness and a shotglass of irish whiskey with a splash of baileys. drop the shotglass in the guiness and pound it down.

tastes like a milkshake. but drink it fast or the baileys curdles.

those things will get you loaded in a hurry.

if you are looking for more of a buzz and enjoying guiness, do black & tans, use bass or harp, or, sip some single malt while pinting

2nd the motion for black and tans. Good fun there.

Thanks for the advice, I'm going to have to try that! I like guiness, but most of the time I want a good buzz as well as a good taste.

As an avid Guinness drinker (as well as a Harp's and Smithwick's drinker, same family) I can say I've never noticed a difference in my ability to get inebrieted. It is definitely harder to get plowed on Guinness simply because it is like drinking liquid bread. I recommend you try Smithwick's or Harp's for that. As for the alcohol content, it varies from country to country. Guinness changes it for taste. :)

Now I'm thirsty :(

I will second the Black and Tan. One of my favorites!

Guinness.. ah.. Mother's milk. I find no problem getting inebriated on the stuff. Although it is rather filling.

I will have to give the irish car bomb a try some time. Sounds like fun!

another nice thing is called a black bush, you get have add a black russian to a half pint of guiness...just the ticket! tastes like a milkshake and gets you pissed up!

Awww man, I'm loving this thread. It's like sitting at your local with a table full of Guiness in front of you. This is on par with the titty board. Good stuff......glug...glug.

Irish car bomb = Half a pint of Guinness. One shot glass half filled with Irish Whiskey and the other half Baileys (Irish cream). Take the shot glass and drop it in the half pint of Guinness. Bottoms up (you usually slam the whole thing at once).

There beers out there that serve many different roles. Guinness's role is taste and texture. It is not really meant for getting drunk.

try black and tan, and see if that changes the drunkeness.

my best guess is that you're drinking slower. i know i drink guiness much slower than anything else....its heavy enough that i just don't drink as fast.

To those of you who think you can't get drunk on Guinness, I would welcome you to come out with me and my mates on a session in Dublin.

Knocking back 12 pints (that's about one and a half gallons to your Americans) of the stuff over the course of about four hours will certainly get you drunk.

I tend to ease off at around 6 pints myself and then hit the Heineken or vodka.

But if you think you can't get drunk on stout, you haven't drunk much of it.


Mr Mephisto

I recommend the website http://www.ivo.se/guinness/index.html

This has lots of interesting information on Ireland's second best export. Especially recommended for those "amateur" Guiness drinkers is A Guide For The Un-Initated To Buying Guinness In An Irish Pub at http://www.ivo.se/guinness/beginner.html

Oh yes, and Guinness IS good for you. Doctors, hospitals and blood clinics still dispense it in Ireland.


Mr Mephisto

There is such a high carb content in Guiness I think you'll find the alchohol impact is not what it would seem on paper. I've been able to put away a couple of pitcher of Guiness in one nmight and have just the slightest buzz.

The iron content in Guiness rivals that of a 6 oz. steak. Hemophiliacs and women with low iron in their blood are traditionally instructed to stick with Guiness.

While I'm sort of a Guinness drinker, it's too filling for me to even contemplate getting drunk off of it. :D One or two is my limit for that beer.

marq: That's not quite true, since:
a) hard liquor allows for quicker delivery (and therefore harder-hitting drunkeness)
b) different types of liquor have other alcohols aside from ethanol in them (such as methanol and propanol), due to lack of distillation and so forth

Mephisto, I'd be up for that. Most I did was 10 pints, I dropped the 11th so I don't count that. The damn glass was wet I tell ya.

i can't get drunk off the stuff cause i get so full, they don't go down very easy.

For some reason, Guinness tastes like cold coffee to me, and Im not a huge coffee fan. I guess thats why I dont like dark beers in general.

Terminator Stout and Negra Modelo are the absolute darkest I go.

Guinness brews a wide variety of items labelled Guinness (Extra) Stout. I am given to understand that the stuff they serve on Tap in Ireland is like 3.2% abv, the stuff in the draft bottles in America is like 4% abv, and the stuff in the regular bottles is 4.5% abv. That's as much juice in it as Budweiser at best. If you like the taste, it's a great beer. If you don't, go with Old Australia stout. Comes in quarts and really packs a wallop.

don't know why? doesn't make sense from an alcohol standpoint. it is heavier, so perhaps you take more time drinking it. maybe you drink with food?

I drink entirely too much Guinness and have never noticed a significantly reduced buzz, but maybe a little bit. A few months ago it was on special at a local pub, and I drank 5 pitchers myself after work over the course of 5 hours. I was feeling very good, but not shitfaced by any means, and I think I would have been a mess if it had been 5 pitchers of Heineken or Harp...

After reading most of these post we all say about the same thing. Don't think that the plastic thing would change the taste, and I don't drink it to get drunk. Well thats only half true.. ;)

Let me just say this.... Guinness suck major ass... can I get a hell yea???

Well, no, probably not. Overrated? Yes. Fetshized? Sure. Third best stout in Ireland? Indubitably. But sucks ass major, minor, or even negligably? No, not really. :hmm:

Tophat, don't leave us hanging on the 2 best Stouts in the homeland! I must know ASAP! Beamish? Murphy's? Or are they not easily purchased here in the States?

Guinness has less carbs and calories than most light beers in America... so that has nothing to do with it.

Those were the two I had in mind, actually. They're pretty easy to find, though not so ubiquitous as Guinness.

Is it possible that when you're drinking Guinness...you just naturally drink it much more slowly?

MmmmmmmmmMmmmmmmMMMMmmmmmmMmmmmmmm.... I :love: Guinness.

Has anyone ever tried that Double Chocolate Malt beer?

<B>Pinkie</b>, that double chocolate malt beer? I've tried a couple of chocolate beers and quite a few made with chocolate malt. Indeed, I just bottled a beer this weekend that I brewed with a healthy portion of chocolate malt in the grist. Chocolate and dark beer is a good fit. I have brewed a brown porter with chocolate, and Sam Adams Chocolate Bock and Brooklyn Brewing's Double Chocolate Stout are both excellent beers incorporating actual chocolate.

Some brewing info: Chocolate malt in the context of beer has little to do with chocolate flavor. It is a particular type of malted barley that is roasted to a chocolate brown. It is called Chocolate malt to distinguish it from Brown malt, which is a lighter toast, Black Patent malt, which is shiny black, and Roasted Barley, which is not malted. It does give a flavor that is not totally unlike unsweetened chocolate, but different enough that an uneducated tongue could tell in a side by side test.

For the record, stouts are generally colored and flavored with unmalted roasted barley, sometimes with a bit of black patented malt, and often with a portion of crystal malt for body and sweetness. Chocolate malt is not usually used in stouts. That said, when you see "Chocolate Stout", chances are about even that they used Chocolate Malt or Chocolate iteslf. "Double Chocolate Stout", like Brooklyn Brewing's, usually uses both Chocolate and Chocolate Malt. I believe Guinness uses a signigficant portion of Black Patent malt, since the head is lighter that one would expect if a very large portion of the grist were Roasted Barley.

Actually Tophat, (btw I love your avatar, one of my favorite episodes), Guinness uses roasted barley and that is why the head is so white. Black patent malt is, as the name suggests, made of malted barley and Maillard reactions that occur during malting black patent malt results in much more pronounced burnt and 'roasty' or coffee flavors and a darker head on the beer.

In the past the use of black patent or roasted barley is what differentiated a porter from a stout, but that line has been blurred over the years.

<b>appleseed</b>, beg to differ. While the science may say one thing or the other, it has been my experience that any significant portion of roasted barley in the mash turns the head brown, whereas the same amout of black patent malt has a much smaller effect.

Thank you for explaining all that. :)

the thing in the bottle is called a widget, i think. anyway, i tend to agree with the concensus that guiness is truly a meal in a bottle. maybe youre just drinking the beer a bit slower than others because it is so filling?

That is an interesting experience <B>Tophat</B>. I have to say that I haven't noticed that effect.

Anyway, Guinness uses roasted barley (from France of all places) and no one other than you or I in this thread probably even cares. It's always good to find another brewer to trade ideas with. Been brewing long?

And <B>pinkie</B> Was it Young's Double Chocolate by any chance? It has a purple label. Even though I'm not a big chocolate fan, that is an amazing beer.

Ok, lets talk about the widget:

First off, it is not present in the old bottles. In the cans, they have the round shaped widget, and in the new bottles, they use the new cylindrical "rocket widget."

Second, it does not "contain nitrogen." Nitrogen and carbon dioxide are used in the packaging, and the nitrogen is used because it provides much finer bubbles.

The way the widget works, is that it is relatively hollow, and has a couple small holes in it, with a valve type closure. During packaging, when the container becomes pressurized, a small amount of beer is pushed into the widget. Upon opening of the package and release of the pressure, the beer is forcefully purged from the widget, and this action causes the gases to come out of solution which produces a number of nucleation sights for further bubble developement.

This is fairly common in beers packaged with nitrogen, as the nitrogen is more soluble than carbon dioxide, so it needs some help to come out of solution. Hence the nucleation sites.

Lastly, Guiness ROCKS. Especially when drunk in the panoramic bar at the top of the "Guiness Experience" in Dublin. If you get the right bartender to pour your drink, they carve a shamrock in the head of the beer with the final dribblings out of the tap.

/fermentation scientist, Oregon State University. 6 months away from a Master's degree in beer.

guiness is really nice if served in a good pub.
here in scotland we get a beer called 80shilling and it is really good too, perhaps better than guiness...