How to Pour a Guinness Properly

It’s March my friend and that means St. Patrick’s Day festivities!  So to help out the newly minted bartender, we will cover how to pour a Guinness beer properly.

1. Take a room temperature pint glass and hold it at a 45 degree angle underneath the draft pour spout.
2. Placing the pour spout a third of the way down the inside of the glass, pull the draft tap head towards you.
3. Fill the glass 2/3’s full with Guinness and shut off the flow of beer.
4. Set the glass down and allow the beer to settle.  This may take 2-3 minutes to finish settling.
5. Once a creamy head has developed on top of the beer, the wait is over.
6. Holding the glass straight below the beer spout, raise it up so the spout just hovers above the lip of the glass.
7. Push and hold the draft tap head away from you as you fill the glass up to the top.  It will pour more slowly but won’t disturb the creamy head atop the beer.
8. Once the head slightly passes the lip of the glass, release the tap head.
9. Set the glass down once more for another 1-2 minutes to allow it to finish setting up.
10. Smoothly hand it over to your patiently waiting customer with a smile.

St. Patrick’s Day is an all day and often all night event, so you may find it more efficient to have someone dedicated to pouring partial pints of Guinness continuously when the bar gets hit with volume.  Also make sure to get plenty of sleep the night before and have plenty of water and coffee on hand through out the shift.  If you work an Irish-themed spot, don’t be surprised if management has everyone work one long shift together open to close.  This will be an opportunity to bond with the rest of the bar staff and learn more about how they all work.  Now rest up and go make some money!