How I Learned to Enjoy Guinness and Stop Spitting It at People
The official beer of St. Patrick’s Day used to be the worst.
In a world where millions of people maintain a fascination with a beer that resembles crude oil, one man was brave enough to admit it tasted terrible.
Until he realized it didn’t. At which point it became delicious. And now he keeps a few in his fridge.
St. Patrick’s Day, or, as some black Bostonians call it, Boston’s Freaknik, will be here in a matter of days.
Me (on the right) with a fellow reveler at the Hard Rock Cafe, St. Patty’s Day 2012.
There are more than a few among us who can hardly wait to don their Red Sox ‘shirsey’ with the red clover or their all-green bodysuit. Beyond the wacky garb and incessant Dropkick Murphys blaring from every storefront and passing car, Bostonians will be doing a ton of what we love to do more than anything: drinking. And what is seemingly everyone’s drink of choice come St. Patty’s Day?
Whether it’s amber—or blacker than the cast of Roots—we all know it’s Guinness.
What did I tell you? Boston’s Freaknik.
This used to perplex me more than anything when it came to drinking: more than why my friends thought Sparks was good; more than why folks judged me for not putting my martini in a “masculine’’ glass; and more than why anyone would willingly drink Red Stripe.
Guinness is to booze what MF Doom is to rap music: It’s a barometer beer nerds use to judge your taste.
For me, interactions with said nerds went something like this:
Jerk: So, what do you like to drink?
Me at 22: Call me crazy, but I really love beer, man. It just hits the spot.
Jerk: You’re so right! How do you feel about Guinness?
Me at 22: Eh, I…
Jerk: (Notices my lack of immediate praise for almighty Guinness, fishes monocle out of chest pocket, walks away.)
This sort of thing happened to me every time Guinness came up, from the time I was old enough to get into local bars, until midway through the 25th year of my life.
Guinness was introduced to me as an undergrad by a teaching assistant who had stumbled into a party hosted by a friend of mine.
I didn’t do any drinking in high school, and started fairly late into my college years, so I may have been behind the learning curve a bit. Still, looking back I wonder how I managed to avoid Guinness for so long. This TA, whom I’d had a class with the semester before, was fairly intoxicated. When he spotted me, he came over, gave me a hug, and talked about the class. When he saw I was drinking something other than Guinness (it was probably PBR, I will always love PBR)—he handed me a can. Having never tried it, I opened it and drank about half of the can then and there. (I like to keep things classy.)
I spit it out. I think I got some on him. He looked, terrified. I think there was a record player playing, and I’m fairly sure someone took the needle off of the record. Children cried in the background. Old wives wept, and the Dow dropped hundreds of points.
Or none of that happened. But the TA and a few of my friends were flabbergasted by my apparent Guinness disrespect.
Sensing that Guinness adoration was a touchy subject, I spent the next two to three years avoiding the topic. I’m fuzzy on exactly how many years it was, because I really did love PBR, folks. At ragers, I drank Bud Light or PBR. At fancier get-togethers, I drank Stella Artois or mojitos. With family, I drank juice, because my family still thinks I’m 15.
But a funny thing happened at party where the DJ refused to play anything but Soca music. I drank a Guinness… and I liked it.
The night my life changed. Also, I needed a haircut.
A brief word on soca music. It originates in Trinidad and Tobago, and it’s the happiest music you’ve ever heard. Being sad whilst listening to soca is the equivalent of being sad while running back a kickoff return, in that it’s utterly impossible.
The music is so chipper, that people regularly dance to soca jams about things as dire as finding out their spouse is cheating or losing all of one’s worldly possessions. It’s insane.
Which explains why, at Good Life in Chinatown, on the lower level packed to the gills with folks sporting mesh shirts and dreadlocks and white dress pants—(Haiti, stand up!)—I was shown the light when a Trini friend asked what I wanted to drink, I told him I’d have what he had. He brought me back a Guinness.
I was too thirsty to argue over a free beer, so I drank it. And it was glorious. I immediately understood why folks looked at the younger me with angry disbelief when I spit it out all those years ago.
Guinness Beer.
Now, nearly two years after my Saul-at-Damascus moment, I have yet to look back. Whether my palate evolved, or whether the first Guinness in that other party was just terrible, I’ll never know. Still, Guinness is amazing now. It’s not too light or too heavy. It’s refreshing and smooth, with hints of chocolate and coffee. And it pairs with almost anything. I drink Guinness with pizza, burgers, fries, nachos, and steak. I drink it whilst watching the Celtics blow a lead, or watching the Patriots go up 20. I drink it with friends and loved ones, and, if I can find a place to park on St. Patty’s Day, I might be drinking at one in the same Emerald Isle-themed watering hole as you.
So, here’s to you, you drinkers of Celtic perfection. This coming week, when you raise your glasses (or accidentally leave them toiletside in the bathroom stall) just know that this brave journalist will be doing the same.
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