Sunday 7 November 2010

Guinness Foreign Extra

If, over the last ten to fifteen years, you'd bought me a pint of Guinness i would have drunk it, but i probably wouldn't have had a second, or bought one myself. It was okay but not really my cup of tea so to speak, and as a consequence i figured i didn't really like stouts. Guinness was stout.
Its only over the last year or two that i've tried them, and its really because of Protz's '300 beers...' when i learned about the history and the range of types, flavours and styles. And since then i've found Marstons' Oyster, Marble 'Stouter', Meantime's, and Untapped's Triple S are all fantastic, each individually wonderful beers.
Even so, i had yet to return to the one that had given me that initial impression.
So this afternoon after a good walk with the kids, and slapping a muffin topped beef stew into the oven i went on a beer run, and figured what better hearty meal to pair with a stout. And new just in my local shop is 330ml bottles of Foreign extra, about £1.39 i think it was.

A beautiful light chocolate head, dark dark brown body. A great thick body, surprised me actually how thick and chewy it was, with its rich chocolate and spice aroma. A taste that is a thick creamy maltyness, rich stewed fruit, coffee, and a good bitterness across the whole tongue. Trouble is now, do i have a 'normal' pint of Guinness or will that shatter some illusion i now have of how good it possibly is??
The stew was excellent also, and Liverpool beat Chelsea so i was a happy bunny all round. Yay.

Bigger picture here

3 comments:

  1. Ordinary Guinness is not worth bothering with, unless there is no other option, once you've tried the proper stuff!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Cant wait to try my bottle, recently got my hands on a Guinness special export at 8%, would you consider ageing it?

    ReplyDelete
  3. I've not heard of people ageing Guinness bottles, i presume its because they are not 'bottle conditioned'. Again i'm guessing but i would imagine they would last over their best before date because of the high abv but whether they would age and improve i dont know, you need someone who knows alot more than me to explain it!

    ReplyDelete