Brookston Beer Bulletin

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Guinness Foreign Extra Stout Finally Coming To U.S.

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guinness-white
At long last, Diageo has announced that Guinness Foreign Extra Stout will be returning to the United States. Discontinued after Prohibition in 1920, it’s been 90 years since it was legally available here. Thanks to Beer Advocate for the tip.

From the press release:

Tuesday, September 28th is National Drink Beer Day! As if you didn’t already have reason to raise a pint, GUINNESS Irish Stout is proud to announce its U.S. launch of GUINNESS Foreign Extra Stout (FES) on October 1st. The fullest in flavor of the GUINNESS brand variants, GUINNESS FES is carbonated unlike the nitrogenated GUINNESS Draught with which most Americans are familiar. The specialty beer is 7.5% ABV and possesses strong, roasted aromas followed by a unique bittersweet taste. Foreign Extra Stout is already a favorite of many around the world, making up 45% of GUINNESS sales globally, and is sure to be a favorite of beer aficionados here in the U.S.

GUINNESS Foreign Extra Stout (FES) is brewed with the highest hop rate of all the GUINNESS variants. The generous hop additions express fully the beers distinctive character and flavor while also prolonging shelf life in warmer climates, as hops are the best natural preservative for beer. GUINNESS FES is uniquely different from GUINNESS Draught both in taste profile, color and ritual.

Brewed for more than two centuries, GUINNESS FES dates back to 1801. Known as West India Porter until the mid nineteenth century, FES was an export beer brewed with extra hops, giving the beer a more intense flavor and higher alcohol strength. The extra hops also acts as a natural preservative for beer, allowing it to survive long journeys overseas.

It’s nice to see a good decision by Diageo on behalf of the Guinness brand instead of gimmicks like Guinness Extra Cold or Guinness Red.

guinness-foreign-extra-stout

Beer In Art #85: John Skelton’s Guinness

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art-beer
Today’s works of art are by John Skelton, an Irish artist who passed away last year, in 2009. Born in 1925, Skelton studied art in Belfast, Northern Ireland and later at St. Martins School of Art, London, where he began his career in the 1940s. The first painting of Skelton’s I stumbled upon is not part of the works featured in his online gallery, it’s title is Aran Pintmen. There’s a Guinness sign above a half dozen lads at the bar drinking their pints of Guinness that reads “Guinness Is Good For You” in Gaelic.

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Here is the Guinness painting. Below is a larger version in a frame on a wall.

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Several other of his paintings were also set in Irish pubs

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Donegal Man. Killibegs, Co. Donegal, from 1999.

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A Corner In A Kerry Pub, from 2001.

John_Skelton-a_drink_with_brendan
A Drink With Brendan, from 2001.

To see more of Skelton’s work, check out his paintings at Osin Gallery, where you can also read his biography. The artist’s son Michael is also setting up a new website, John Skelton Online, to honor his father’s memory and his legacy.

Guinness Ads #6: The Ostrich

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guinness-toucan
The sixth Guinness poster by John Gilroy is another of the many ads that are in a zoo. In this one, one of the most famous, an ostrich has swallowed a pint glass whole and it’s visible in his long neck. The tagline is perhaps one of the most common, “My Goodness, My Guinness.”

guinness-ostrich

Virtually the same ad has also appeared in a slightly different aspect ratio.

guinness-ostrich

Guinness Ad #1: The Balancing Seal

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guinness-toucan
The first poster John Gilroy did for Guinness is believed to be of a seal balancing a pint of beer. Gilroy apparently got the idea while visiting the circus. The UK Independent related the story last year, when Guinness was celebrating their 250th anniversary, and simultaneously their 80th anniversary of advertising.

The artist was reputedly visiting the circus one day when he was impressed by the sight of a sea lion balancing a ball on his nose. Gilroy, deploying the strange thought processes of great advertising creatives down the decades, conjured the image of a sea lion balancing a bottle of the black stuff and made it the subject of an iconic Guinness poster ad. From there followed a menagerie: an ostrich, a tortoise and then the famous toucan, the best-known Guinness animal.

That would have been in 1930, the year after Guinness began advertising. Gilroy continued to work on this Guinness campaign for the next 35 years.

Guinness Seal

Beer In Ads Special Edition: John Gilroy

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guinness-white
You probably know John Gilroy’s advertising artwork, even if the name is not familiar. John Gilroy is responsible for the iconic Guinness ads that ran from 1927 through the 1960s. Featuring toucans, kangaroos, bears, ostriches and other animals along with the occasional steel-carrying strongman, lumberjack and zookeeper, the roughly fifty posters Gilroy produced are some of the most famous beer ads ever done. So many of his posters are famous that it seems a shame not to highlight them separately from the other ads I’ve been featuring during the week. So each Saturday I’ll post a new Guinness poster or ad. Gilroy is believed to have done nearly 50 of the posters and another 100 print ads for Guinness over a 35-year period working on the Guinness account, first with a firm, and later as a freelancer.

Below is a sample of what you’ll see over the coming year or two, every Saturday.

guinness-collage

For more about John Gilroy, see Wikipedia (and their page on Guinness advertising), Celtic Shamrock, Newcastle University (where Gilroy was an alum), Journal Live and especially at the Guinness Collector’s Club, which has a great biography page.

Beer In Art #44: Donald Curran’s Having A Pint

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Today’s artist is Donald Curran, who lives in St. Louis. He spent most of his career as an illustrator, including “designing and illustrating high end collectible steins for Anheuser-Busch.” After turning his attention to fine art, he’s been creating paintings of a wide range of subjects, including this one, entitled Having a Pint.

Curran_having-a-pint

This one was painted in 2007 and Curran, like all his works, describes it simply. “This is a painting I did of two gentlemen having a pint in a pub in Ennis, County Clare.” Given he worked for A-B, it’s probably not too surprising that he’s done a number of paintings of life in pubs. Here are a few of them below.

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Dublin Pub. “This is a painting I did of a man waiting for the beer delivery truck in front of a pub in Dublin, Ireland.”

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Sharing a Beer. “This is a painting in a series of three I did of a little dog watching a man drink a beer in a pub in Ireland. The dog finally gets it’s wish.”

From the biography on his website:

After graduating from high school, he studied at the Kansas City Art Institute. In 1975 Donald began a career as a successful illustrator. As an illustrator he is best known for designing and illustrating high end collectable steins for Anheuser-Busch, Inc. After twenty years of working for hundreds of major national and international companies, he decided to devote himself to his first love of fine art painting.

Donald now creates paintings of all the things he loves. He claims finding material to paint is as easy as keeping your eyes open. His travels around the world provide him the material that motivate him to paint. His home in Missouri will always be a major influence on his work. The change of seasons and beauty of the mid-west continue to keep him residing there.

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A Dublin Pub. “This is a painting I did of the famous “CONFESSION BOX” pub in Dublin.”

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Galway Pub Music. “This is a painting I did of a group of people singing and playing music at the Tig Coili Pub in Galway.”

Donald’s work has been exhibited in numerous museums, galleries and exhibitions. His paintings can be found in collections throughout the US, Canada, Europe and Asia. He was commissioned to do three paintings for the 2002 Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City, Utah.

Curran_outside-Guinness
Outside the Guinness Brewery. “This is a painting I did of a man with his horse and wagon standing outside the Guinness Brewery in Dublin.”

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Party at the Pub. “This is a painting I did of the inside of a pub in the city of Cork. It looked like everyone was having a grand time!”

You can also see additional pieces by Curran at Mystic Sea, the Museum of America and the Sea, Artnet, the gallery at his website, and his blog.