I’m going through my Photobucket looking at old stuff, and I’m in the “scooter club days” strata. For all the posting I did on scooter forums, I didn’t really talk a lot about scooters. Mostly I would wind people up over silly shit, and post crudely manipulated pictures of my friends doing obscene and (to me) hilarious things. A couple of those windups were truly transcendent, and I wish I still had them on record. Some douchenozzle stole my old laptop, so I don’t, so there it is. But I do have some pictures.
One of the sets of pictures I found on Photobucket was a tutorial I did on how to drink Guinness from a glass in your own home. I can’t remember why I would do such a thing, except that I feel very strongly about a good pint of the black stuff. It’s not particularly funny, or really funny at all, but seeing it reminded me of some of those funny things from back then. So I guess I’m a joke tease.
But, in an effort to knock a certain post from its position in my top 3 of most frequently visited entries, I am going to post those pictures with a facsimile of the advice I originally gave with them. Ready?
The first thing you need is a good pint glass. This being the United States we have to settle for 16oz pints rather than Imperial pints, but that’s OK. This is my Stella pint glass from the Genuine Scooter Company. Any pint glass will do, but one with pictures of other stuff you like that’s not beer are best. Or no pictures at all, if those exist in places you shop. The cheap ones from Wal-Mart break really easily, so I don’t recommend them.
Next you need a can of quality beer. It doesn’t have to be Guinness Draught, but were not talking silly straws and little paper umbrellas here, either. I prefer beer that shares key advertising adjectives with interracial fetish porn: “black”, “thick”, “strong”, and “makes White people act strange”.
Some American professional bar tenders will tell you to pour straight into the glass. Screw that noise. I am a professional beer drinker and want to maximize my beer to foam ratio. Tilt the glass at an approximately 45˚ angle for the first part of the pour.
Crack open the can and immediately begin pouring the beer into the glass. Aim the stream of beer for the side of the glass, and don’t let it fall too far. Avoid the sort of antics that tempt you with wine bottles and tea pots where you try to see how far apart you can get the two liquid containers in some dexterous display of wotsit, because this affects how the beer ultimately turns out, and that is Serious Business. Pour the beer until the level reaches the lip of the tilted glass and then stop. Just like in that picture up there.
Set the glass down. The beer will now “cascade”. This is a fancy term I picked up from a little cardstock instruction manual that came with a pint of Guinness I got on Saint Patrick’s Day 1999. It came with a free pint glass and explained much of what I’m teaching you now, but not nearly as entertainingly. So anyway, this is something that needs to happen, and it can’t be rushed.
Go do something else for a minute. Like warp back in time eight years and play Solitaire on an old version of Windows. I don’t remember what version is pictured, but I do know that I tried like hell not to have to upgrade to it. I used Windows ME for a LONG time, because it could not be permanently killed. It was a zombie-like operating system, in that every time my roommate’s ridiculous porn addiction finally gave it enough internet-herpes to make it crash, a system restore could bring me back online in the time it took most computers to boot up. When I finally got rid of that old Compaq Pavillion there was absolutely nothing wrong with it, other than it was old and not a MacBook. But the point is, you’re letting the first pour of your perfect pint of Guinness settle comfortably in its new home, getting everything ready for its partner, the second pour, to arrive.
Now we gently pour in the rest of the can. The half an inch or more of foam should steadily recede to no more than a quarter of an inch by the time it reaches the top, and every bit of precious liquid in the can should fit into a standard sized pint glass. If you don’t know what a pint is and think, like several bartenders I have come across in my travels, that one of those crumby red plastic cups is a quality beverage container, then you will have messed this up and will now be cleaning off your counter top. When you’re done with that, throw out all your red plastic party cups, it’s time to grow up.
Isn’t that beautiful? Of course it is!
I have heard the argument that when you pour the whole beer straight into the glass in one go, the resultant three inches of foam acts as some kind of magical quality control device. What’s really happening is that you’re getting charged for a full pint of beer and getting to drink about 10oz of it. Or if you’re in a completely ghastly place you’ve just paid something like $7 for a red plastic cup with 5oz of flat, piss-yellow, sour beer hidden beneath a smelly layer of undrinkable bubbles. Just pay the man, drink it, and go somewhere else. When you pour a glass of quality beer into a real pint glass the RomanticAntihero way, you get a thin but strong layer of foam that should look like fresh pancake batter. And if you’re into the idea that a head of foam locks-in the magic, then be happy that this thin but strong layer will remain in the time it should take you to drink the whole glass.
By all the gods, this is some good stuff we’ve got right here!
And there is that. I mentioned scooter forum shenanigans earlier, so I think I will post a couple of the pictures I made back then. These are two of the mostly SFW pictures I made, the language being the only offensive thing about them. There was a week or two where funny Craigslist ads were in style, mostly in response to the terribly inaccurate and obvious scam attempts involving the wave of cheap, Chinese knock-off scooters flooding the market at the time. Here were two that I did:
Comedy gold, yes?
I did eventually sell The Hate Machine, though. I just couldn’t take it anymore. I felt like an abused spouse, always convincing myself I deserved the punishment because I needed someone to control my behavior, and finding ever more creative ways to have “accidentally hurt myself” to tell my friends and co-workers. A hot-rod vintage bike is just not an appropriate thing to own when you have an unsteady amount of discretionary income and little to no mechanical skill.
So that’s all about how I prepare beer to drink. Just another one of those “just because” blog entries.
Because, that’s why.
Reviresco!
Romantic Antihero™ 