1. There really is a small ball in your Guinness can. It’s actually a Guinness widget that’s working hard to replicate the draught experience in a can. When a Guinness can is popped open, a small amount of beer and nitrogen, which is trapped in the widget, is forced out to create the famous creamy head that you’d expect if your Guinness was poured for you from a tap.
2. The water used for Dublin-brewed Guinness comes from the Wicklow Mountains, County Wicklow is known colloquially as the 'Garden of Ireland'.
3. More than 160,000 pints of Guinness are lost every year in facial hair. Guinness commissioned a study in 2000, which found that an estimated 162,719 pints of Irish stout go to waste every year via facial hair.
4. The Guinness Book of World Records was inspired by an argument in a pub. Yes, Guinness, the beer is connected to Guinness World Records: “the ultimate authority on record-breaking achievements.” In 1951, the managing director of Dublin’s Guinness brewery, Sir Hugh Beaver, had a pub argument about the fastest game bird in the U.K. The conversation prompted the idea of a reference book about all the “superlatives” debated in pubs. A few years later, the first Guinness Book of World Records was published in 1954.
5. The first overseas Guinness brewery outside of Ireland and the U.K, was officially opened in Nigeria in 1963. Nigeria is now the second-largest market for Guinness.
6. The St. James's Gate Brewery has been using its own strain of yeast for over 100 years which gives Guinness its distinct taste. The Brewery keeps reserves of this precious ingredient so if anything happens to the main supply, the Brewery can be up and running within a matter of hour
7. The Guinness Storehouse, a visitor center at St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, has become one of Ireland's top tourist attractions and one of the top things to do in Dublin. It offers seven floors surrounding a glass atrium shaped in the form of a pint of Guinness.
8. The Guinness-champagne combination known as “Black Velvet” was created in 1861 when London was brought to a standstill due to the death of Albert, the Prince Consort of Queen Victoria. Legend has it a bar steward at Brook’s Club at the time came up with the mixture, explaining that even a glass of bubbly should be in mourning and dressed in black.
9. The Guinness Harp: The harp, registered as a Guinness company trademark in 1876, is also the national symbol of Ireland. However, the two can be much more easily differentiated by the soundboard. The soundboard (straight edge) of the Guinness harp is always on the left while the soundboard of the Republic of Ireland harp is always on the right.
10. While Guinness originated in Ireland, it's now brewed in almost 50 countries around the world.
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| Brogan's Bar in Dublin, Ireland. If you want to take me, let's go! |