The golden harp. The ritualistic three-part pour. The bravado of splitting the G. It always baffled me how a drink that is essentially liquid brown bread accumulated such lasting popularity. But in the modern world, branding is everything.
Guinness manufacturers have ingeniously built up what is almost a cult following around the stout. Not only a staple of pub culture, it has also long occupied an unquestioned position in popular consciousness. My grandmother was advised to drink Guinness while breastfeeding, and even nowadays I’ve heard gym bros extolling it as a source of iron (it’s not really).
Guinness has enjoyed acclaim as a cultural symbol of Ireland since the 18th century, but has only recently made it big in Britain. Formerly typecast as an old man’s drink, Guinness used to be a left-field choice. Now, swept up in the aesthetic renaissance of the classic British pub, it offers a chance for posh boys to cosplay at being salt of the earth (despite often being the most expensive drink on draught). The drink creates the illusion of an ‘in-club’, cultivating an ‘if-you-know-you-know’ mentality, especially concerning the sacrosanctity of the three-stage pour. It is this very performative aspect of Guinness that leads drinkers to consider themselves qualified to loudly pronounce judgement on a particular pint to an unlucky onlooker. The new cult of Guinness drinking, founded in the name of individuality, has completely obscured the traditional cultural significance of the pint for Irish people, and has subsumed it into an index of ‘laddishness’ for young English men.
The drink is undeniably gendered. With the online culture around Guinness being inescapably masculine, exemplified in content like the Schooner Scorer, drinking it becomes almost a performance of virility, such that I’ve been told that I “wouldn’t get it”, that I should “stick to my vodka coke”. Obviously, I could never reach the level of masculine vigour required to drink a 4.2% beer.
If there’s any vitriol in my perspective, it’s probably because of the hours of my life spent nodding noncommittally while men explain the correct ratio of head in their pint, or demonstrate their ability (or failure) to split the G. It’s safe to say that I haven’t had the best experience with Guinness drinkers.
For the cult followers of the stout, the iconography of the pint becomes almost a status symbol. Their vaunted ability to discriminate between different draughts of the exact same drink is worn like a badge of honour. What strikes me most about the Guinness drinker is their utter loyalty. No matter the range of options on offer, no matter how inappropriate the setting, the Guinness drinker will remain unswervingly devoted, the drink occupying a space somewhere in between their routine and their personality. Some refuse to go to pubs, or force their friends to leave, if the bar is out of their favoured pint. They revel in the theatre of splitting the G, so that the drinking experience becomes almost entirely gamified (you can even get an app that lets you practise the technique in the comfort of your own home). Such people seem to actively cultivate the label ‘Guinness drinker’ as part of their personal brand, a deliberately manufactured personality trait that makes one wonder what exactly they’re compensating for.
Following a national shortage earlier this year, numerous pubs across the UK began to replace Guinness with Murphy’s, an objectively better tasting stout, but with little success. If it’s not Guinness, Guinness drinkers won’t have it. It seems that the drink itself is of little importance: it’s an aesthetic more than anything else. How can they possibly display their masculinity, their individuality, if not by this competitive beer-chugging ritual? (And no, your date is not impressed.)
But if the appeal of Guinness for this demographic rests entirely upon external perception, will it maintain its popularity among them once it dominates the market in the US, for example? Now that even Kim Kardashian is posing with the pint, I wonder how long it will take the English lads to find a new, ‘edgy’ drink to rally around.
But for now, bottom’s up, Guinness drinkers. Maybe you’ll find those missing dregs of personality at the end of the next pint.
