The Guinness beer is without doubt more than a mere beverage, it is a symbol that represents the Irish culture and the brand of choice in more of the Irish pubs around the world. Securely, most of us and even you, associate the Guinness beers with the wood Irish pubs automatically.
Guiness beers origins
The origins of this drink are situated around the year 1759, in these times an Irish beer master known as Arthur Guinness appeared.
This man started the beer production in an old brewery, that was bought for 9000 years with a fee of 45 pounds per year, named as St James Gate Brewery located in the city of Dublin.
Seeing the impact and after almost 9 years of testing, the entrepreneur opted for the product exportation to another countries outside Ireland, in fact their first client was Great Britain.
The curious story behind the Guinness logo
As we already know, the Guinness beer logo and the Ryanair airways logo have the same symbol, an iris harp.
Possibly you have not noticed yet that… these logos are the same as the official logo of the Irish republic! After a few moments that Arthur Guinness had patented his brand, the Irish government was disturbed because the two logos were the same as the symbol they have pretended to use to represent the country. So, both parts agreed that Guinness would use the same logo, but in backwards.
This measure was adopted for Ryanair too, in order to avoid the symbol confusions.
Behind the world famous book of records
Have you ever asked how the title “World Guinness Book of Records” was invented? Certainly, behind this name of this book exists one curious history, which involves the brand.
In one occasion, the CEO of the Guinness Brewery company (Hugh beaver) had a strong discussion with his fellow friends in a pub of Dublin.
The matter of discussion was to decided which bird was the fastest, the golden plover or otherwise the capercaillie.
Not finding an equitable solution, Beaver himself thought that it could be very interesting if a book were able to provide such answers. As one might expect, it was a resounding bestseller and remains one of the best-selling books in the world to this day.
Guinness & the irish culture
As a love sample of the Irish people to this beer brand, they show their passion with the biggest events, as an example, in the past year 2009, on the 24th November at 17:59, the Irish and more than 150 countries celebrated the “Arthur’s day” with joy as a tribute to his first owner Guinness.
Indeed, the own brewery includes a museum, where it contains a Guinness memorabilia of the company and the best achievements around the history. In the museum, some incredible curiosities can be found, such as some tracks of the Titanic boat entries that related some Guinness beers shipments in 1912 during his first trip across the sea.
This hour was chosen in referent to the day, that Arthur signed his loan contract, besides this time is one of the common hours that the Irish people meet in their favorite pub.
Finally, according to some statistics, every week more than 9,800 pints are served daily in the most affluent areas in Dublin, and it is not a causality that every year more than 550 million liters of beers are consumed in more than 100 different countries.
A special bound with Spain
The history of the Guinness beer is connected with some traditions from Spain and, to be specifically, the Santiago Way. The street, the train station, the chapel and even the name of the brewery are named as St James, in honor of the apostle and his pilgrimage.
Since the XII century, more Irish peregrinates have started their pilgrimage from this point until to reach Santiago of Compostela. As a curious fact, The Compostelana can be signed in the Brewery itself and proceed the journey to Galicia.
Why the Guinness beer can contains a little ball?
Guinness, in contrary to other beer cans, is very peculiar when it is served, so in order to open it, a special overture, made of hydrogen, this system was developed to keep the same flavor as a beer barrel served in an Irish pub.
The cause of this “little ball” is due to a small capsule, which guaranties a minimum hydrogen charge when the beer is opened, thus the foam and the gas are properly distributed. It is recommended waiting 119.50 seconds to enjoy the pint with the maximum quality.
Other Guinness
Apart from the common pints that are served typically in many Irish pubs. In the market have appeared several beer alternatives, such as the Blond Guinness and the “Over The Moon”, this new type of beer presents an unconscionable bitter flavor with foam.
