Dublin Guinness Porter (3,8%)

Guinness goes back to the future with new beers and brewery
Diageo chief stresses Guinness is "strategically core" to the drinks giant despite speculation that it might sell the Irish stout or pursue a merger with another brewer. Guinness has launched two new variants, Dublin Porter and West Indies Porter, which were developed using recipies from Arthur Guinness's original brewing books  (www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/
leisure/11093581/Guinness-goes-back-to-the-future-with-new-beers-and-brewery.html).

Een berichtje over Guinness op Sint Patrick's day lijkt me wel gepast...


To the untrained eye, the brewing books, the first of which dates back to 1796, look like a mathematics or calligraphy exercise book. The yellowed, fragile pages contain row after row of immaculate, uniform numbers.
Within the notebooks’ neat columns, Arthur Guinness, the father of the black stuff as well as 21 children, recorded all of his early experiments, noting down the measures of hops and malts used in every brew. More than 200 years later, modern-day brewers at Guinness are using his trials as an inspiration for new products...The brewer, which was merged in 1997 with the Grand Metropolitan drinks company to form Diageo, is looking to tap into the booming popularity in Britain and the US for “craft” and artisan beers.
Diageo is breathing new life into the Guinness brand with two new variants in the UK, Dublin Porter and West Indies Porter, which it hopes will quench the thirst of craft beer enthusiasts, who have been driving a small, but encouraging recovery in beer sales  (www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/
newsbysector/retailandconsumer/leisure/11093581/Guinness-goes-back-to-the-future-with-new-beers-and-brewery.html).

Figures produced by the Campaign for Real Ale last week show Britain now has more breweries per person than any other country in the world, as the thirst for craft beer shows no signs of abating. An additional 170 breweries opened last year, most of which produce cask-conditioned real ales, taking the running tally in the UK to 1,285.
The trend runs counter to a sharp decline in beer sales in the UK and Europe. Beer sales in Britain have fallen since 2005, dropping in 2013 by 4.4pc, as alcohol consumption has fallen, pubs have struggled in the aftermath of the smoking ban and more drinkers have switched to wine or spirits (www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/leisure/11093581/Guinness-goes-back-to-the-future-with-new-beers-and-brewery.html)..


The green shoots have been put down to a renewed interest in beer driven by micro-brewers.
Diageo wants a piece of the action. Although its drinks cabinet is dominated by spirits brands such as Johnnie Walker Scotch whisky, Smirnoff vodka and Baileys, beer still accounts for a fifth of sales globally. In Western Europe, beer is Diageo’s single biggest category.
But sales of Guinness globally over the last few years have been lacklustre. In Diageo’s last full financial year, to June 30, net sales of Guinness dropped 5pc, not helped by poor economic conditions in Nigeria, its second-biggest market after Britain and the location for Guinness’s first brewery outside Ireland and the UK, built in 1963.
For some time, analysts have questioned whether Diageo should sell Guinness to concentrate on spirits (www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/leisure/11093581/Guinness-goes-back-to-the-future-with-new-beers-and-brewery.html).
(www.thegrocer.co.uk/buying-and-supplying/new-product-development/guinness-to-go-beyond-stout-with-craft-beer-inspired-porters/371229.article)

Mr Menezes: The aim is to grow market share. And far from a threat, Menezes believes the craft beer trend will help the Irish stout.
“The interest in taste, quality and craft in the beer category is very good for us,” says Menezes. “If you look at the interest and where consumers are going, they want heritage, they want craftsmanship, they want quality and they want better beers from a taste standpoint.” Dublin Porter and West Indies Porter will be the first of many new variants, he adds....Major brewers have been accused of being “crafty” by buying up micro-breweries or marketing mass-produced drinks as “artisan”.
Menezes insists craft doesn’t always have to mean small. “You need real credentials. If you pretend to be something you’re not, that is not going to work. Ultimately when you look at the quality of ingredients and the way we go about building, we have got the credentials.” (www.telegraph.co.uk/
finance/newsbysector/retailandconsumer/leisure/11093581/Guinness-goes-back-to-the-future-with-new-beers-and-brewery.html).


When you pick up a pint of Guinness you are holding more than 250 years of history and tradition in your hand
The drink evolved over the centuries from very small beginnings indeed to become the world’s best-known and loved porter and the first global brand to come out of Ireland. And every time you taste it you are experiencing the collective wisdom built up over more than two centuries.
The skill of the brewers who are responsible for producing Guinness is not something they have just learned in a college or from a text book; it is something that has been handed down through generations and is a key factor in the enduring popularity of this most iconic of drinks.
In fact, everything that happens in the brewery today is firmly rooted in that heritage which goes all the way back to 1759 – and that includes the signature which appears on every Guinness bottle, can and tap everywhere in the world.
The first and only original example of Arthur Guinness’s now very familiar signature can be found on the lease which forms the centrepiece of the Guinness Archive. While the 9,000-year lease for the four-acre site at St James’s Gate is the legal foundation of the business, it also represents much more, including a spirit of entrepreneurship, innovation and foresight which set the company apart from the very beginning (www.irishtimes.com/sponsored/in-pursuit-of-more/guinness-turns-to-history-for-inspiration-1.1982162).

Guinness had first trademarked its label back in the 1860s as a means of protecting the brand, and the harp has been on the label ever since,” explains Guinness archivist Deirdre McParland. “However, like many brewers, we traditionally didn’t bottle our own product. The company wanted to make sure that only genuine Guinness was sold as Guinness so every publican who wanted to bottle it had to apply to do so and they got their own label. Each one had their individual label and they would lose it if they were found to have done anything wrong. The company had its own printing department producing these labels.”
Examples of these labels are contained in four separate label books in the archive. “The label books are still used to this day to help inspire the design of new labels for different Guinness variants,” McParland adds.
The tradition of product and business innovation goes back to the earliest days as well and continues to reach down to the present generation of brewers. Ale was actually the dominant beer at the time in these islands and was the first beer to be brewed at St James’s Gate. However, within a few years Arthur Guinness had started to brew a new beer which had drawn its name from its popularity among the porters in Billingsgate Market in London.
The decline and eventual ending of ale brewing and its replacement by porter at the brewery is recorded in a brewing book – a production log – which spans the period from 1796 to 1815. This extraordinary piece of history spans the entire Napoleonic Wars, two uprisings in Ireland, the Act of Union, and much else besides, and still influences the development of new Guinness products.
The book reveals that ale was brewed for the last time on April 22nd, 1799. It also shows the different recipes for every batch of porter made every day during those years. These recipes are still used by brewers when looking to develop new products and one of them formed the basis for the creation of the recently launched Guinness Dublin Porter (www.irishtimes.com/sponsored/in-pursuit-of-more/guinness-turns-to-history-for-inspiration-1.1982162).


Maar goed, hoe smaakt het? In mijn nederige opinie proef ik weinig verschil. Het is een bier zoals elk andere porter.


Guinness Dublin Porter, 3.8% abv, £1.99 (500ml)
From a recipe excavated from the diaries of their Dublin brewers, dating from the company’s origins in 1759, this Porter is black in the glass with a moderate white cappuccino cream head. It is just a little creamier and sweeter (though not by much) on the palate than the Original with slightly more evident malt and chocolate/caramel notes, finishing clean and refreshing. If you put this Porter and the Original side by side I suspect you would see a close affinity: perhaps the latter emerged out of an earlier recipe developed from the former? (www.wine-jar.co.uk/?p=753)

The taste is light and dry. Dark chocolate, burned toast, red fruits, nougat and prunes. Light body. The aftertaste is light and dry, it reminds a bit of Guinness Mid Strength. Charcoal, olive oil and light clean bitterness. The finish got notes of dark cholate and charcoal.
The carbonation is light, the mid-sized bubbles are short lived. The liquid is very light, but not watery.
A light and highly drinkable porter... More like a modern stout.
 rDev bark, Nov 05, 2015 (www.beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/209/136565/)

In the 19th century Guinness had three main products: Porter, Extra Stout and Foreign Extra Stout. Though the names used weren't always those. Before 1896 Porter was called Single Stout and Extra Stout was called Double Stout. Foreign Extra Stout was also known as Foreign Export Double Stout and West Indies Porter at different dates. Guinness weren't very consistent in their use of the designations Porter and Stout, using both words at different times to describe all three products.
Funnily enough, a name I haven't seen mentioned until now is Guinness XX Porter. Though when I did a bit of digging on the web, the name popped up in various 19th century adverts and texts. Luckily, I've been able to work out the OG of the beer they anaylsed and it's clear which of the Guinness products it is: Porter. I've other analyses for Guinness Porter and Extra Stout from the 1890's. The Porter was 1063º, the Extra Stout 1073º (http://barclayperkins.blogspot.nl/2011/07/
guinness-xx-porter-in-1861.html).



Guinness is a popular dry stout that originated in Arthur Guinness' brewery at St. James Gate in Dublin, Ireland. The beer is based on the porter style that originated in London in the early 18th century. It is one of the most successful beer brands in the world, being exported worldwide. It is very popular in Ireland, of course, although many other types and brands of beer are available in pubs....Guinness is brewed to make a thick black stout. It certainly is an acquired taste, much more bitter and heavier than the other types of beer...Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000 year lease with the city of Dublin in 1759 for the St. James Gate property where the original brewery was located. The final family member to be directly involved with the running of the Brewery was Benjamin Guinness who passed away in 1992. Today, the brewery is owned by Diageo, the world’s leading premium drinks company, who also boast Baileys, Smirnoff and Johnnie Walker Whisky among others in their drinks portfolio (http://millefiorifavoriti.blogspot.nl/2008/06/guinness-and-pubs-in-dublin-ireland.html).

Guinness (/ˈɡɪnɨs/) is an Irish dry stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness (1725–1803) at St. James's Gate, Dublin. Guinness is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide. It is brewed in almost 60 countries and is available in over 120.[1][2] Annual sales total 850 million litres (1.5 billion Imperial or 1.8 billion US pints).
A feature of the product is the burnt flavour that is derived from roasted unmalted barley, although this is a relatively modern development, not becoming part of the grist until the mid-20th century. For many years a portion of aged brew was blended with freshly brewed beer to give a sharp lactic flavour. Although the Guinness palate still features a characteristic "tang", the company has refused to confirm whether this type of blending still occurs. The draught beer's thick, creamy head comes from mixing the beer with nitrogen when poured. It is popular with the Irish both in Ireland and abroad, and, in spite of a decline in consumption since 2001, is still the best-selling alcoholic drink in Ireland where Guinness & Co. makes almost €2 billion annually.
The company moved its headquarters to London at the beginning of the Anglo-Irish Trade War in 1932. In 1997, it merged with Grand Metropolitan to form the multinational alcoholic drinks producer Diageo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness).


Guinness, officieel St. James' Gate brewery, is een bierbrouwerij in Dublin, Ierland. De brouwerij werd gesticht in 1759 door Arthur Guinness en produceerde oorspronkelijk een porter. Uit deze porter kwam later een stout-porter voort, de huidige stout.
Het bekendste product van de brouwerij, kortweg ook Guinness geheten, is een bier van het type stout.
De kleur van Guinness wordt vaak aangezien voor zwart, maar in het juiste licht is te zien dat het bier eigenlijk 'ruby red' is, wat door Guinness zelf bevestigd wordt.
Het bier wordt vandaag de dag volgens de brouwerij nog steeds gebrouwen als vroeger, met vier ingrediënten: water, gerst, hop en gist. Het water dat bij dit proces gebruikt wordt is, in tegenstelling tot wat vele Ieren elkaar proberen wijs te maken, niet afkomstig uit de rivier de Liffey die door Dublin stroomt, maar van een bron die zich op enige afstand van Dublin, in de Wicklow Mountains bevindt.
Het bier zou volgens de traditie ingeschonken moeten worden op zodanige wijze, dat er tijdens het tappen een klavertje of een harp (beide symbolen die kenmerkend zijn voor Ierland) getekend kan worden in de stevige schuimkraag. Uiteindelijk laat men het schuim bezinken en tapt men bij tot het glas gevuld is met bier zonder kraag (https://nl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness).

Arthur Guinness started brewing ales in 1759 at the St. James's Gate Brewery, Dublin. On 31 December 1759, he signed a 9,000 year lease at £45 per annum for the unused brewery.[6][7][8] Ten years later, on 19 May 1769, Guinness first exported his ale: he shipped six-and-a-half barrels to Great Britain.
There have been claims that Arthur Price, a Welshman, took the original recipe with him to Ireland where he hired a servant, Richard Guinness, whose son later opened the brewery.[9][10]
"Stout" originally referred to a beer's strength, but eventually shifted meaning toward body and colour.
Arthur Guinness started selling the dark beer porter in 1778. The first Guinness beers to use the term were Single Stout and Double Stout in the 1840s. Throughout the bulk of its history, Guinness produced 'only three variations of a single beer type: porter or single stout, double or extra and foreign stout for export'.[14] Porter was also referred to as "plain", as mentioned in the famous refrain of Flann O'Brien's poem "The Workman's Friend": "A pint of plain is your only man." ....Guinness thought they brewed their last porter in 1973. In the 1970s, following declining sales, the decision was taken to make Guinness Extra Stout more "drinkable". The gravity was subsequently reduced, and the brand was relaunched in 1981. Pale malt was used for the first time, and isomerized hop extract began to be used. In 2014, two new porters were introduced: West Indies Porter and Dublin Porter (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness).