tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6657229330840382051.post7225983519180136713..comments2024-02-28T08:40:20.134+00:00Comments on From Swerve of Shore to Bend of Bay: The Frothy Freshener: James Joyce's Guinness SloganPeter Chrisphttp://www.blogger.com/profile/11206688095197843271noreply@blogger.comBlogger8125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6657229330840382051.post-12664059585710838282020-06-08T00:23:21.434+01:002020-06-08T00:23:21.434+01:00Guinness is a dangrous brown liquid.Guinness is a dangrous brown liquid.Garretthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02974557136482344404noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6657229330840382051.post-73550306123091434242019-03-21T10:31:31.410+00:002019-03-21T10:31:31.410+00:00What a great film! - have added it to the post. Th...What a great film! - have added it to the post. Thanks for the correction Martyn. Those pints don't look as ceamy to me as modern ones, but I take your pointPeter Chrisphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11206688095197843271noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6657229330840382051.post-43996708558230555702019-03-21T09:35:57.526+00:002019-03-21T09:35:57.526+00:00It's not true to say that the creamy head has...It's not true to say that the creamy head has only existed since 1959: the beer served via the high-cask-and-low-cask method had a lovely thick creamy head, when poured by a skilled barman, as you can see in the video here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z8EOXDI2ULQ Martyn Cornellhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/16843357962176591317noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6657229330840382051.post-56721074611939890482019-01-25T13:49:19.468+00:002019-01-25T13:49:19.468+00:00Actually, the most memorable mention of Padraic Co...Actually, the most memorable mention of Padraic Colum is in "Gas from a Burner" where the printer who refused to set the type for Dubliners declares that "I printed poets, sad, silly and solemn:<br />I printed Patrick What-do-you-Colm"Anonymoushttps://www.blogger.com/profile/02625938962547215850noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6657229330840382051.post-60004206870319400962019-01-25T12:48:43.302+00:002019-01-25T12:48:43.302+00:00I only learned that two days ago. It's a fasci...I only learned that two days ago. It's a fascinating story.<br /><br />Before the nitrogen was added Guinness had to be poured using a convoluted dispensing system: <br /><br />'Figuring out how to streamline the process was a difficult enough conundrum (they called it the “draft problem”), that even after 20 years no one had solved it.<br /><br />To give you a sense of what they were trying to replace, here’s how Martyn Cornell describes Irish Guinness in Amber, Gold, and Black:<br /><br />“In the pub, the casks containing this highly conditioned beer were known as ‘high,’ while casks containing maturer, less lively beer were know as ‘low.’ Publicans would fill glasses three-quarters full from the ‘low cask’ and then top them up with foaming beer from the ‘high cask.’ The ‘high’ and ‘low’ cask system was in use until at least the 1960s.”<br /><br />Ash recalled this himself. “The barman would take a whole minute to fill one glass. He had to get a low pressure cask over a period of time and then the high pressure one, and he had to mix them. He had to be very skilled, the Irish publican, because it took a minute to get a glass. Every barman had his own process. It was all very amusing.”<br /><br />He worked on the riddle of how to replace this system for years. Very early on, he saw nitrogen as the solution. It was “such an obvious gas,” he said. “It’s completely inert and it’s three-quarters of what we breathe. It was perfect for this purpose.” The trick wasn’t selecting the right gas, though; it was designing a keg that would work with it. Inside Guinness, Ash’s quest was regarded as quixotic, and other brewers chided it as “daft Guinness” and the “Ash Can.”<br /><br />Eventually, working with a keg designer, he did figure it out. He described it to us. “There were two parts. One part where we had to have a reducing valve, and one part for the two gases, nitrogen and CO2, high pressure, reducing valve, low pressure, flood the beer. When we drew off the beer, the gas would come through the reducing valve giving you a constant pressure.” The keg went through two designs before Guinness started sending it out to pubs, rushing at the end to get the project launched by 1959—the brewery’s 200th anniversary.<br /><br />It’s safe to say that Ash’s invention revolutionized Guinness and Irish stout. It’s hard to imagine Irish stout served any other way, now (and not just Guinness), and so much of what nitro brings to the drinking experience has become fused with the brewery’s identity. The “surge,” that period of settling when the bubbles seem to flow down as the head settles, has been the subject of ad campaigns for decades. Pouring a perfect pint, topped with the precise depth of snowy head, is an activity the brewery treats almost like a sacrament.'<br /><br />http://allaboutbeer.com/man-invented-nitro-guinness/Peter Chrisphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11206688095197843271noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6657229330840382051.post-75189994299627547012019-01-25T12:41:17.708+00:002019-01-25T12:41:17.708+00:00I come from Dublin (Clontarf) and I never knew unt...I come from Dublin (Clontarf) and I never knew until now that 'the creamy head has only existed since 1959'. tony smythhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17771763749137149585noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6657229330840382051.post-42542445033890986092019-01-25T12:37:32.423+00:002019-01-25T12:37:32.423+00:00There’s another beautiful passage where Joyce talk...There’s another beautiful passage where Joyce talks about Guinness and froth. It’s from Lotus Eaters:<br /><br />Going under the railway arch he took out the envelope, tore it swiftly in shreds and scattered them towards the road. The shreds fluttered away, sank in the dank air: a white flutter then all sank.<br />Henry Flower. You could tear up a cheque for a hundred pounds in the same way. Simple bit of paper. Lord Iveagh once cashed a sevenfigure cheque for a million in the bank of Ireland. Shows you the money to be made out of porter. Still the other brother lord Ardilaun has to change his shirt four times a day, they say. Skin breeds lice or vermin. A million pounds, wait a moment. Twopence a pint, fourpence a quart, eightpence a gallon of porter, no, one and fourpence a gallon of porter. One and four into twenty: fifteen about. Yes, exactly. Fifteen millions of barrels of porter.<br />What am I saying barrels? Gallons. About a million barrels all the same.<br />An incoming train clanked heavily above his head, coach after coach. Barrels bumped in his head: dull porter slopped and churned inside. The bungholes sprang open and a huge dull flood leaked out, flowing together, winding through mudflats all over the level land, a lazy pooling swirl of liquor bearing along wideleaved flowers of its froth.<br /><br />One 1922 reviewer of Ulysses found the story of Lord Ardilaun and the lice deeply offensive. <br />Peter Chrisphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11206688095197843271noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-6657229330840382051.post-68335757280780387252019-01-25T12:13:05.039+00:002019-01-25T12:13:05.039+00:00I love the rest of the Cyclops quotation
-- Hurry...I love the rest of the Cyclops quotation<br /><br />-- Hurry up, Terry boy, says Alf.<br />Terence O'Ryan heard him and straightway brought him a crystal cup full of the foaming ebon ale which the noble twin brothers Bungiveagh and Bungardilaun brew ever in their divine alevats, cunning as the sons of deathless Leda. For they garner the succulent berries of the hop and mass and sift and bruise and brew them and they mix therewith sour juices and bring the must to the sacred fire and cease not night or day from their toil, those cunning brothers, lords of the vat.<br /><br />Then did you, chivalrous Terence, hand forth, as to the manner born, that nectarous beverage and you offered the crystal cup to him that thirsted, the soul of chivalry, in beauty akin to the immortals.<br /><br />But he, the young chief of the O'Bergan's, could ill brook to be outdone in generous deeds but gave therefor with gracious gesture a testoon of costliest bronze. Thereon embossed in excellent smithwork was seen the image of a queen of regal port, scion of the house of Brunswick, Victoria her name, Her Most Excellent Majesty, by grace of God of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland and of the British dominions beyond the sea, queen, defender of the faith, Empress of India, even she, who bore rule, a victress over many peoples, the well-beloved, for they knew and loved her from the rising of the sun to the going down thereof, the pale, the dark, the ruddy and the ethiop.Peter Chrisphttps://www.blogger.com/profile/11206688095197843271noreply@blogger.com