Have you ever poured a proper tap beer?

Its not as easy as it sounds. You need some skill. And in some special cases about 20 years of practice. Like in case of Guinness for instance.

By the way Guinness Breweries started publishing The Guinness Book of World Records about sixty years ago. The rumors say that it was in order to entertain people while they wait till their pint is ready. Which usually takes a minute or two.

While in a lot of bars you need six steps to reach the toilet, in Irish bars the bartender needs this six steps to pour your beer:

I spent a night and a day trying to learn how to deal with Guinness. There was an international food festival by the Vltava river near Prague and one of my friends realized that as a proud Irish, he shall introduce Guinness to the Czechs. He bought about twenty kegs and rented a tap. The tap didn’t fit since Irish and Czech beer kegs have different tapping mechanism.

When my Irish friend finally gained the fitting tap, he noticed that he lacks skills and experience. His first poured glasses looked foggy and tasted muddy. Yes, you won’t believe that, but for the final taste of your pint the pouring is almost as important as the beer itself.

So he asked me. I hadn’t any experience with Guinness either. I read a lot about it, I watched about twenty youtube how-to videos… I thought I got into it… And my first glasses were almost as bad as his :)

Anyway, my friend decided to let me manage his festival booth since when we compared our attempts, mine was slightly more Irish. He had to drown his defeat in whiskey later that night, but that is a different story.

So the very next morning, I woke up earlier than my dog (and, fortunately, earlier than my hangover, so I dodged it) since I had nightmares about foamless Guinness that tries to pour me into a glass that wasn’t cooled enough. I reached the festival grounds as the first vendor, passed by a sleeping security guy, prepared everything necessary about three hours before the official beginning and then I spent those three hours praying for a terrible storm that will force canceling the event.

Well, gods apparently dislike me since the cloudless sky and the sunny day encouraged visitors to have a beer. Or two. Or seven. (You know, it took place in the Czech Republic. We don’t end up before the keg is empty.)

So I was forced to pour beer by beer. I really did my best. I concerned with every single glass. I even stayed sober until I started the very last keg. And I am quite sure that one or two of my pints would be considered average in any place in Dublin. Yep, one or two of several hundreds, but I am still proud on myself.

As a reward, I kept the final few pints for myself. And my Irish friend, who arrived just in time to have some either.

Unfortunately I don’t have any pictures of that day. I was busy by more important things to taking photos. All the images are from Pixabay.com under CC0 Creative Commons license.