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View Full Version : Guinness Extra Cold, a modest disagreement


MeridianFC
04-12-2006, 03:03 PM
This is related to something I had posted in the thread about 10oz Buds. I remembered a letter to the Irish Times several years ago about the trend toward mouth numbing temperatures for the native Irish drink. I finally dug up a copy of said letter buy wanted to avoid further threadjacking that discussion. Enjoy:

Madam, - I am a martyr for the pint. I believe there is nothing like the next one. Ten years ago I could walk off the street and go into a pub and order a pint. Not any more. Now I must first go home and get my equipment and bring it down to my local. My equipment is a blow-lamp. This is to defrost the pint and bring it to an acceptable temperature. I fail to see why publicans do not supply blow-lamps for pint-drinking customers. Now for the good news for Dublin pint drinkers. There is a licensed premises in Parliament Street which sells a pint of plain at an acceptable temperature. Don't all rush. - Yours, etc.,

A follow up response is equally as good:

It seems that all breweries have decreed that their product must be served at a temperature so cold that it freezes the mouth and deactivates the taste buds. Guinness actually went one stage farther last year when it introduced an even colder tap which it accurately called "ice-cold". Fortunately, this doesn't seem to have caught on and is now used only in hospital ENT departments where it has been discovered to be a cheap and effective anaesthetic for patients undergoing tonsillectomy. I believe the problem lies in the marketing departments of the breweries. These are populated by small armies of post-acne bright sparks who drink either Budweiser or Heineken which, for obvious reasons, must be consumed ice cold, and who believe that everyone should have tastes similar to their own.

Recovered from here:

http://bestofbothworlds.blogspot.com/2003_06_01_bestofbothworlds_archive.html

Now there are two excellent pieces of the deadly combo of truth and wit for which those islanders are rightly famous.

Beefsteak
04-12-2006, 03:58 PM
Funny. :)

I recently asked for a room temperature glass at a local brew-pub for a stout that I had ordered. The waitress looked at me like I was on crack or something.

chazwicke
04-12-2006, 04:01 PM
Hilarious. "Post Acne Bright Sparks" sounds like a name for a band.

MeridianFC
04-12-2006, 05:05 PM
Live this week at the Human Head:

Martyr for the Pint
w/ Post Acne Bright Sparks

Show starts promptly at 8pm.

chazwicke
04-12-2006, 05:44 PM
:D

Sladek
04-12-2006, 06:13 PM
Well done Meridian, thanks for posting it! I love it!

HarkJohnny
04-12-2006, 09:43 PM
while I don't get out as often to the restaurants anymore, I do make it a point to say "unchilled glass, please!"

It usually doesn't happen but when it does the tip is better.

steveh
04-12-2006, 11:36 PM
Originally posted by Beefsteak
I recently asked for a room temperature glass at a local brew-pub for a stout that I had ordered. The waitress looked at me like I was on crack or something.

See, and that's even worse - at a place that just ought to flipping know better!

It wasn't a Ram Brewery, by chance? I received a frozen glass of beer at one of them and asked the bartender why she did that and got a shrug and, "'Cause that's how our customers like it?" I asked if the brewmaster knew his beer was being served that way and got, "I think so."

S.

fretlessman71
04-13-2006, 12:18 AM
Had a beer (Samuel Adams) with lunch at Noodles & Company last weekend; asked for a room temp glass with my bottle. 2 minutes later a different person showed up with a chilled glass and a warm beer! Yowsa....

HogieWan
04-13-2006, 09:19 AM
I was at sushi resturant by work a while back. I asked for a room temp glass when I saw the tender go for the cooler. She said that all of them were cold, but she would be glad to rinse it under warm water. Big tip was left for her.

surfadelic23
04-13-2006, 10:35 AM
I've actually had bartenders at non-beer geek places ask me which I'd prefer Frozen or not. I always tip those folks REALLY well.

mookow
04-13-2006, 01:17 PM
Originally posted by HogieWan
I was at sushi resturant by work a while back. I asked for a room temp glass when I saw the tender go for the cooler. She said that all of them were cold, but she would be glad to rinse it under warm water. Big tip was left for her.

See, stuff like that is why I laugh at people who think tipping a bartender is wrong, and that they should just be paid a straight wage. You'd instantly turn bartending into a McJob, and when is the last time you got service like that at a McDonald's?