After my most recent blog concerning the ever changing art of the Guinness pour, I received an e-mail from a gentleman who said he worked for Guinness parent company, Diageo. He rightly set me straight on the fact that Guinness draught, whether bottled, canned or kegged, was brewed in Ireland. I quickly confirmed this fact while having a beer with Stephen Beaumont, the very-well traveled beer columnist and author (and great source for such info) while in Philly (Click for my post on Philly Beer Week).  I also re-checked my original online sources and I could see where I screwed up my facts. I made a correction via the blog commentary.

The E-mailer also took me to task on another, deeper issue; the fact that I saw “Diageo” as some overlord, when in fact it’s a merger of Guinness and another consumer product company called Grand Metropolitan. He was asking, in essence, why do I carry such a chip on my shoulder against these mega-brewers. Which begs the question– What’s really wrong with corporate beer?

Look, I am not some naïve, hippie type, anarchist who just hates corporations and capitalism. I am a capitalist, and my “day-job” is in management for a multi-billion dollar mega-corporation. So, I am not one to run with the rabble turning over limos or burning buildings at a G-8 summits around the world. But, over the years I have discovered a few persistent truths… (more…)

WATCH VIDEO: See how Kay Dillon of Okay’s Restaurant was taught to pour a Guinness

As with many culinary delights and quaffable adult beverages, one can easily get caught up in the lore or of traditions that go along with our delicacy of choice; or is it just marketing bull?

With the season O’ the Green upon us, your cynical Irish beer-writer would like you to take a closer look at the drink that if it were available on the Emerald isle during the days of St. Paddy, it would have surely been his tipple of choice… Guinness Stout, of course!

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While my team was over in Belgium (see post below) and risking it all to help balance the world’s beer supply, it appears that dark forces were at work back home…

It looks as if I was a little too optimistic when I asked all you fellow beer lovers to just keep quiet as we sat back to watch the craft beer bill move through the 2008 legislative session. HB 2934 was tabled after second reading. It’s dead folks! For another year at least.

One of the bill’s sponsors told me that it was killed by the House leadership because of fear that it would not look good in an election year do anything pro-alcohol. I am also told that Dallas Staples (my new devil…), the West Virginia Alcohol Commissioner, is harboring some twisted idea that his agency should be the sole source to sell higher alcohol beers. Someone needs to sit him down and explain the real world of the beverage sales business to an ex-cop. Do you really think breweries are going to want to split up their product lines to sell “non-intoxicating beer” through wholesalers while then having to deal with some state bureaucracy to sell the rest of the line? Who is going to sell it? Only restaurants that have a full liquor license or liquor stores would even have access, not to mention what it would cost. The idea is just plain ol’ West Virginia stupid! (more…)