What drink would you expect me, a middle-class 25-year-old from Tunbridge Wells, to order in the pub?
A medium glass of sauvignon, perhaps? A gin and tonic, if I’m feeling fancy? Well, no. For me it’s always a pint of Guinness.
I pride myself on the fact that this is an unexpected choice, one that will pique the interest of my drinking companions. To be irreplaceable, Coco Chanel said, one must always be different.
But I’m not the only twenty-something who opts for the black material; In the run-up to Christmas, pubs are facing an alarming shortage of Guinness as demand soars.
Diageo, the conglomerate that owns the brewery, has announced it will limit the quantity pubs can buy due to “exceptional consumer demand” in the UK. A drought-stricken east London hipster pub is handing out ‘ration cards’, allowing drinkers to buy a pint of Guinness only once they have proven themselves by purchasing two other alcoholic drinks.
Guinness might once have been the preserve of red-faced, flat-capped old bar owners, but, according to Diageo, there has been a 24 per cent rise in the number of female Guinness drinkers in the last year, and a strong increase among younger drinkers. generally.
Special mention goes to my sister-in-law, who, desperate to please my Irish family, once ordered a Guinness in a Galway pub, to which blackcurrant cordial was added to disguise the flavour. “Here’s the one with poison,” the waiter barked.
However, the Irish goalkeeper is facing an unprecedented rise in popularity, and it is driven almost entirely by my generation.
Olivia Dean, a middle-class 25-year-old from Tunbridge Wells, says her drink of choice in the pub is a pint of Guinness.
According to Diageo, there has been a 24 per cent increase in the number of female Guinness drinkers in the last year, and a sharp rise among younger drinkers overall.
TikTok and Instagram are full of accounts like @schoonerscorer, which rates Guinness drinks in English pubs, while enthusiasts share images of shamrocks artfully inscribed on the creamy head of their pint. True fans like me have even had a selfie printed on the foam at the Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.
Sit my group of friends, men and women, around a pub table and by the end of the night it will be filled with harp-marked glasses. Some of us just love its unique earthy flavor, yes. But why exactly has it become so popular?
“The kids think it’s cool,” one (understandably anonymous) friend admitted. ‘If you have a Guinness, you look different to the other girls. “It’s like pretending you like football.”
Yes, there is an elegant rebellion to it, a suggestion that you don’t care about traditional femininity. He saved my skin before: my Irish ex admitted he could only stand my English accent because I’d had a Guinness on our first date.
But there are other advantages too. A friend confessed that she drinks Guinness because it’s the only beer that doesn’t make her bloated (it’s not carbonated, so it settles more easily in the stomach). It is also rich in iron, which is good for all of us.
As I discovered somewhat irresponsibly when working for the Irish edition of this newspaper, Guinness is so heavy that if you drink about four pints after work, you will be full and have no need to rush home for dinner. ‘Duinness’, you could call it.
For a generation obsessed with identity, Guinness gives personality to the drinker.
Just ordering one is a ritual in itself. There’s the complex slow pour system (the glass is kept at 45 degrees), which beer fans love to lecture bartenders about.
There is an obsession with “splitting the G” (for the uninitiated, this is a challenge in which the first drink must bring the level of beer in the brand’s glass to exactly half of the “G” of “Guinness “).
Then there are the cheesy slogans – “A lovely day for a Guinness”, “Guinness is good for you” – that beg to be splashed on an ironic T-shirt.
Even the world of haute couture has taken notice. Northern Irish designer JW Anderson launched Guinness-branded t-shirts and jumpers for £650, while another Irish designer, Pellador, made a sell-out collaboration I was desperate to get my hands on.
There is a myth that the taste of the drink varies from pub to pub. This is undoubtedly excellent public relations (in fact, some claim that the reported shortage is just a marketing ploy in itself) and gives the humble pint an exclusive feel.
It is true that Guinness sends inspectors to check the quality of the pints. It requires a spigot of nitrogen to give it that foamy white rush. But otherwise, there’s no reason why a Guinness can fail.
I have this in good ink; I once visited the Dublin brewery and asked my guide if the rumors that it doesn’t travel well were true.
‘You are welcome. Maybe the English are just bad (not funny), and that’s why it tastes like shit there,” he ventured.
That is the main attraction of Guinness: its Irish character. If there is one thing the British love, it is to claim any heritage that is not their own, especially that of the Emerald Isle. And from Gladiator II’s Paul Mescal and Cillian ‘Oppenheimer’ Murphy to Bridgerton’s Nicola Coughlan, all things Irish are having a moment.
So if you’re part of an older generation of drinkers, don’t get mad at twenty-somethings for hogging all the Guinness. Our love of an Irish pint could end up being the savior of the Great British Pub.
But let’s be honest, the real reason we all drink it is because we want to be seen drinking it. Me included.