GUINNESS 250 Anniversary Stout

It's supposed to come out today. Here in NM, we typically lag the bigger cities in seeing stuff like this.

First one to taste one wins the opportunity to tell us all about it!

http://www.foxbusiness.com/story/ma...able-years-limited-edition-anniversary-stout/

If I see it at the store I'll definitely pick up a sixer. It would be my first commercial beer purchase in months probably.

Working on my second one right now whilst grillin up some sausages!!

I like it. Not quite as dry as regular Guinness. I detect a black cherry note. Overall quite nice and SWMBO likes it as well!!

Nice! I'm jealous. The guy at the beer store hadn't even heard that it's being bottled. He thought it was keg only... looks like I may be waiting a little while before I get to try it.

I Love The Dont Taze Me Flag!! Dont Tread On Me

I bought mine at my local supermarket. Granted they installed a largish craft beer selection last year and they carry lots of great imports. I received an email from Guinness about a week & a half ago announcing that it would be released on the 24th so I was on the lookout.

And, MrWhleDr, I have always loved the Gandner Flag and have been known to use the phrase 'Dont tase me bro!' in daily conversation. When I saw the picture on some blog, it was a lock for my avatar.

Has Guinness jumped on the same "triple hopped" bandwagon as Miller?

Here's the description from ratebeer........

Commercial Description:
Made with a double brew stream that combines two types of malts, ale and stout. Carbonated. Uses Guinness yeast, triple hops and roasted barley.

It's good, but for an anniversary like 250 years I was hoping for something spectacular

Just picked up a sixer of it at the grocery store. Gonna wait til later to try it.

My mom had it this past weekend and really enjoyed it.

It is more like a brown porter than a stout. It is ok, but nothing mind blowing.

carnevoodoo said:

It is more like a brown porter than a stout. It is ok, but nothing mind blowing.

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It seemed a little thin (I drink a lot of strong stouts though). I guess I was hoping for more body for some reason.

Yeah I was very disappointed in this, tasted watered down and the bottles are only 11.2 oz with no widget

-Archroy

I was overwhelmed by the metallic taste of the brew, and, like archroy, severely disappointed in the lack of widget.

FAIL!

A friend of mine drove many many miles to pick some this up(he is a huge Guiness fan). I tried on of his over the weekend and I was hugely dissappointed. I am not a Guiness guy mind you, but this seemed even more watered down less carbonated than regular Guiness offereings.

I went home and brought my friend my latest Java Stout and changed his mind towards Guiness a bit. Good home brew is really hard to beat in my totally unbiased opinion. And, sorry to say, Guiness is not a good representation of a stout.

No hard feelings if you like the stuff, it ain't my bag baby.

There was an amazing discussion of this beer at Stan's
http://appellationbeer.com/blog/guinness-250-can-you-taste-the-difference/

Specifically the comments of Kristen England.

As for the beers, I had them sidebyside this weekend. The 250 taste more like a traditional dry stout. I compared it to O’Hanlons. I then opened a the nitro wigeted version, put it in a vacuum aparatus and removed all the nitrogen and CO2. I then transfered it into a plastic bottle and carbonated it and tasted it next to the 250 at cellar temps. I did vice verse with the 250 but use beer gas to carbonate it.
The regular Guinness was a lot less flavorful that the 250 when regularly carbonated. The 250 lost an awful lot of its flavor when poured like a widget based Guinness. Story short, they are actually quite different and using nitro completely kills nearly all flavor.

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Here are is my data from last nights experiment. All the details I could test and muster. I did the BU and EBC with a UV spec and they correlate pretty much directly with what I’ve found published. The thing I find most interesting is the finishing gravity is nearly the same for all of them. As the alcohol goes us the hops go down. Pretty neat.
Here you go:
Foreign Extra Stout (Jamaica)
OG 1.070
FG 1.015
7.5%abv
32BU
236EBC
Extra Stout
OG 1.056
FG 1.010
6%abv
37BU
153EBC
250 anniversary (Dublin)
OG 1.047
FG 1.010
5%abv
40BU
140SRM
Guinness draught stout (UK)
OG 1.041
FG 1.010
4.1%abv
42BU
145EBC

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I really like Guinness as an easy drinking beer that can be found almost anywhere. I like the dry Irish Stout style better than other stout styles (not to say I don't like the others). However, I was fairly unimpressed with the 250th anniversary stout. It reminded me quite a bit of the first stout I brewed which was an all extract kit and wasn't great.

That metallic flavor is likely oxidation. I noticed some of that in the six-pack I bought as well.

I tried it on tap.

My second beer was the regular Guinness.

Beer reviews on this site continue to make me weep.

Boerderij_Kabouter said:

Beer reviews on this site continue to make me weep.

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Lack of details or fondness for Guinness?

I had one bottle a week or so ago and I thought it was a little better than the standard Guinness draught, but not quite as good as the extra stout.

IMO, the 250 does not have the sour twang but is generally fruitier in aroma. More English yeast character.

I appreciated the difference but didn't prefer one over the other.

nipsy3 said:

Commercial Description:
Made with a double brew stream that combines two types of malts, ale and stout. Carbonated. Uses Guinness yeast, triple hops and roasted barley.

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It's a 50/50 blend of Guiness and Smithwicks, don't be fooled! "Double brew stream" sounds an awful lot like "we took half a keg of stout and filled the rest up with the red." Honestly, I can distinguish the two beers pretty readily when I drink it.

As an experiment, get a Guiness, Smithwicks, and the 250, and blend the first two until you get the third. I bet it won't take you long.

That's clearly not it as the 250 is CO2 carbed and Guinness and Smithwicks are Beer Gas carbed.

olllllo said:

That's clearly not it as the 250 is CO2 carbed and Guinness and Smithwicks are Beer Gas carbed.

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I'm nitpicking, but Smithwicks is co2 carbed as well. However, despite carbonation method, I still hold that the flavors from both beers are present in the 250.

MikeRLynch said:

I'm nitpicking, but Smithwicks is co2 carbed as well. However, despite carbonation method, I still hold that the flavors from both beers are present in the 250.

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I've only had it on tap on nitro. It must be the bar's preference.
I taste the fruityness but not an Irish Red character. It doesn't explain to me the lack of sourness.

Finally got to trying it and thought it was great! Compared to the Extra Stout, its a bit more smooth and velvety in body and lightly carbonated which creams up the body a bit. Taste is very balanced, more sweetness present, good gentle roastiness, and a nice hop character. Very drinkable.

Compared to the Draught version, this blows it away every time. Just as good as the Extra Stout, can't pick one over the other though.

I have like the 250 since I tried it at my LHBS here in San Antonio. Then the other night at a pub here (lion and the rose) sold the 250 in its own pint glass, so i had to pick up 6 of them to have a nice set to go with all the Guinness Glasses I have. The SWMBO also like the 250 and was helpful in drinking them at LNR's.

I picked up a six-pack this weekend, and sampled it with a neighbor. Honestly, I was hoping for more. We both though it was good, but it wasn't better that the regular draught.

I ran across this stuff yesterday out here in beer purgatory. As I'd never heard of it previously, figured I'd read up on it before I sampled. Here's a writeup I ran across:

Guinness to offer new stout for limited time - Food Inc.- msnbc.com

And here I thought America was becoming more beer savvy...silly me. Take a second and tally up the fail in that article.

Just sampled it...I don't see how this can carry the "stout" label....MikeRLynch's opinion above definitely holds water as far as I can tell. All the rich, dry, roasty quality of the Draught has been watered down. To me this stuff is a half-assed porter, at best.

That said, it's not bad. I'd classify it as a "dark summer beer", and as such, it should be about $25/case. Unfortunately, around here it's going for about $11/sixxer. Utter horse****e. Hard to believe that Guinness chose this to commerate their 250th anniversary.

If you can't tell, I'm dissappointed. IMO, While the bottled Draught and the Extra Stout are OK, Guinness should stick to distributing their normal draught stout to bars who know how to serve it properly (on nitro). That's where Guinness just really shines.

Obviously, as I stated earlier, I am disappointed in this version of Guinness. But at least I only paid $9.99 + $0.30 deposit for my disappointment, versus the $11+ that you other poor bastards have shelled out for the "stout"!

tried it.
This brew tasted of the Horse's Piss.

sorry to ruin it for others. but it was nasty.