What can be better than on a beautiful spring afternoon to sit out on a blanket in a open field just turning green with a lunch, Guinness, and your collection of whistles? I just spent a couple of hours doing just that, playing my whistles until my lips were numb. Being thankful for the whistles, the beautiful Irish music, the day, and the Guinness. 
It was all going so well until I got to the Guinness bit. I’m afraid I don’t like it - it’s the smell.
Why can’t I like drinks that are good for me? I don’t like red wine because it doesn’t tase right freezing cold, and I like my cold drinks to be COLD. Similarly bitter and stout. So I drink lager and cheap white wine, although not usually at the same time. Now there’s a thought…
The rest of it sounds great though 
Yup! A lovely, sunny morning, with all the trees showing that glorious green fuzzy look of newly opening leaf buds. And two hours to myself while my wife was at church. Just the sort of morning for a nice practice session in the park.
And when I got out of the damn car, my fingers nearly froze from the bloody wind!!!
Never buy a product on the visual appearance of the package.
Yessh well I’m the mashta of alchohol.
Yepp yepp whas bedda den a sping day,
a whisshtle, a bodle of Cutty Skark?
I notice of the Guinness served at the local bar here in NJ, that there is considerable variation in the taste and smell. Some days it’s great, and some days it smells a bit like a trash bin, with a taste to match. Ann I never had a good experience with Guinness from a bottle, yeesh.
In America we enjoy a large number of really great microbrews; but microbrew stouts in America tend to be the kind of brown-headed stuff that tastes like raisins and coffee and chocolate, too nutty and spicy and all that. My kingdom for a local stout in the same family as Beamish/Murphy’s/Guinness.
Caj
We can buy canned Guinness with little implants called widgets I think. Keeps the head intact—its, not yours. Now this isn’t quite the real thing but it is much closer than you’ll get from a bottle.
Yesterday it was raining and cold and windy here. A really nasty day to be outside at all, much less having a picnic!
Then today, when I woke up, it was snowing.
God I love spring!!
:roll:
Steven
I have a friend who works for New Belgium Brewing (microbrew out of Ft. Collins, CO) and he enlightened me as to that bad taste. The variation you are experiencing results from the lines linking the keg to the tap. In an Irish pub, I imagine the Guinness is flowing so regularly that it never sits in the lines much. But in America, Guinness is consumed less frequently (since everyone buys those microbrews). If the beer sits in the lines, it sours a little and nothing will get that taste out unless they flush the lines. It is very disappointing to look forward to a Guinness and get that taste. All the more reason to go to Ireland where the Guinness/Murphy’s flows free…
I may be mad, but I swear I’ve seen Beamish in those widget-type cans here in the US.
But for a good microbrew stout, you might try Sierra Nevada’s. Or their porter. Both are a bit more hoppy than the Irish big three, but much less so than most of the other US microbrews. (I love Anchor Porter, but it’s a real hop monster - best consumed with something like a pastrami sandwich that can stand up to it).
Warning: excessive experimentation in this area can effect your whistling for the night.
Indeed you have. I had one last evening at band practice (hair of the dog, but that’s another and somewhat embarrassing story).
You’re still mad. Starkers. 
The last time I started turning green it was something I ate. Ten days of antibiotics and I felt much better 