Everyone knows Guinness tastes best from Ireland

Well err...

One of the beers we tasted before the Phoenix’s first game was a can of Irish brewed Guinness. To my relief it didn’t have a widget and hadn’t been canned under nitrogen, that unfortunately was where the nice things that could be said about the beer stopped.
Guinness is one of those major brands that manage to surround themselves in romance, myth and misunderstanding on the part of the consumer. This is in part due to its Irish roots (having watched The Wind that Shakes the Barley last night I’m not sure how romantic those Irish roots really are) and in part to the fact that it is black in a range of multinational beer brands that are all golden.
Draft Guinness in this country comes from a Lion lager factory in Christchurch, it shares most of its ingredients and production methods with those lagers, and as a result comes out a rather uninspiring yet perfectly palatable beer. Not a great dry stout but alright when the options are limited. The example from Dublin was something else...

Guinness Original 4.2%

Pours a deep black with a beige head, reassuringly there’s no Nitro cream flow here. Aromas of banana, a metallic astringent note and some roast grain. On the palate the banana dominates along with some oxidative character, perhaps even a touch of vegetal character, very little malt shows through, a little astringency. Thankfully there is no nitro in this; however the flavours that are left are not very pleasant. I would take Chch brewed version over this.