Guiness/Murphys/Beamish
by Dave Houseman
<Editor's Note> The following piece was taken from a post to the HBD by Dave Houseman. Dave is a frequent contributor to the Home Brew Digest and is also a member of the AHA Board of Advisors. I thought the timing was perfect to go along with this month's style contest.
</Editor's Note>
There's a joke that goes something like this: A man goes into a bar and orders three beers and proceeds to drink them himself and leaves. The next night he does the same thing. On the third night the bartender can't stand it any longer and asks the man why he orders three beers. The man said that he had two brothers who lived at a great distance from one another and they had pledged to always drink together by having one beer for the each of them. The bartender thought this was touching and brought the man his three beers. This continued nightly for almost a year when one night the man comes in and orders just two beers. The bartender was very concerned for his new friend and offered his condolences. "Why?" asked the patron, "Do you offer me condolences." "Well," said the bartender, "for the loss of your brother." "My brother's not dead," said the man with a puzzled look, "He just stopped drinking."
As many know, in the UK, many pubs are Tied Houses; that is they only serve the beer from one brewery to which they are "tied." I was lucky enough to find a lovely pub in Dublin that wasn't a tied house and it served Guinness, Beamish, and Murphy's Stout. It was here that I ordered a pint of each, drinking alone to sample the differences between three of the world's classic Irish Dry Stouts, fresh and together. It was here that the equally lovely barmaid asked why I was drinking three pints by meself? It was here that I told her the story of my two other brothers and that we never drink alone...
Most BJCP judges don't get the opportunity to try draft Beamish or Murphy's, although today Guinness can be found at many restaurants and bars throughout the USA. Finding all three together is quite rare. And many judges still have the concept of the Dry Stout as the one produced by Sierra Nevada and countless brewpubs. They don't recognize the lightness of this session beer.
Just what is a session beer? Well it's one that you will have a number of in a single drinking session and still walk home. Most assuredly you shouldn't be driving even after having a number of the low gravity, low alcohol session beers. English Bitter, Mild and Irish Dry Stouts fall into this category.
The current BJCP style guidelines (www.bjcp.org) describe the Irish Dry Stout. For brevity I'll not repeat it here.
My notes from my night of sampling beers in Dublin indicate that Guinness, Beamish and Murphy's all have similar body. Full mouthfeel but thin body. Of the three, the Guinness seemed to have a more "watery" mouthfeel than the other two. All have the familiar dark, black color but not entirely opaque. All maintained a tight, creamy head that left rings of lacy foam around the glass, each marking a long pull on my pint as if trees marking particularly bountiful years with wide rings of sapwood. None had any diacetyl and they all left behind low residual sweetness in the aftertaste. All had some limited fruitiness from the ale yeast and warmish ferment, but not as high as the English pub ales.
There were, and are, differences in these three classic examples of the Irish Dry Stout style. Beamish is bitter, Murphy's more bitter and Guinness the most bitter of the three. Guinness had no hop flavor or aroma while both the Beamish and Murphy's had low hop aroma. Murphy's also had low to medium hop flavor while the Beamish had a solid medium hop flavor that was on the verge of phenolic.
Both the Guinness and Murphy's had a slight roasted barley flavor, not nearly as pronounced as I'd remembered it at the time. There was a subetly of roasted barley not a dominant one. The Beamish had no roasted barley flavor but rather a chocolate malt character, again perceptible but not dominate.
While I didn't get the opportunity to visit either the Beamish or Murphy's breweries, a trip to Dublin is not complete without a visit to Guinness' St. James Gate Brewery and Pub. Actually, one takes a self directed tour of a Guinness museum and pub where artful barmen give provide you with two complementary pints of the freshest Guinness skillfully crested with shamrocks drawn in the dense foam stand by pour itself. Here the Guinness character may truly be unique in its freshness. The sensation of this wonderful stout was more bitter than that which we are served here in the States, but that could have been just my imagination since I didn't have a side-by-side comparison. Again no hop aroma, but I did sense a slight hop flavor. Perhaps Guinness starts out with a slight hop flavor that diminishes rapidly. With the high hop bitterness some flavor may be inevitable. I only detected the slightest tinge of sourness in the flavor. Whether Guinness does in fact add a portion of soured beer, as is rumored, or if this "tang," as many refer to it, is a result of acidity from the roasted barley, I can't say. But to my pallet, I just don't detect the same level of sourness and "tang" that some other beer aficionado's claim to find. Rather, I find that the mouthfeel of these stouts is full but the body is light. These are light, refreshing beers, not full-bodied beers.
And while I was there I could not pass up the Irish Ales.
It may just be me, but Killigan's is to Irish Ale as Budweiser is to Pilsner Urquell. This I found out the same night that I tried three stouts. This time I ordered the two Irish ales on tap, Kilkenny and Smithwicks. When the barmaid asked why I was only order two pints this time, well, I could hardly help but complete the story about my one brother having just stopped drinking.... but I digress. These two beers were quite different.
Kilkenny was served with nitrogen just as the Guinness stout is. This is a deep amber/copper colored beer with rich creamy head. It had medium diacetyl, higher than the Smithwicks, was malty sweet with a fruity character and low hop bitterness, low hop flavor and aroma, although balanced on the whole. Kilkenny was served warmer than the Smithwicks and was noticeably less carbonated.
The Smithwicks had little to no head, similar to a Killigans in the US. It was served quite cold and highly carbonated. Malty, fruity, with low to medium diacetyl, this was very similar to some American microbrewed ales. Low to medium bitterness, now hop flavor and no hop aroma, deep amber/copper color, this ale was very clean and described by the barmaid as "popular with the Brits as a pale ale."