How To Pour The Perfect Guinness

If you're a beer drinker, you've certainly seen the exacting ritual a bartender goes through when one orders a draft Guinness. The iconic stout beer brand prides itself on Guinness always being served after the bartender completes a six-step process to achieve what is considered the perfect pour. This technique ensures that the nitrogen-infused beer is presented with the ideal amount of foam on top,  known as the head. 

Bartenders are typically trained on how to achieve the perfect pour of Guinness. The official process is as follows: grab Guinness's branded tulip glass for its beer, suitably cooled and cleaned. Then, fully open the tap while holding the tulip glass at a 45-degree angle. Once the beer reaches the top of the gold harp on the brand logo, close the tap and move the glass to a vertical position. Wait about 90 seconds for the beer to settle, then turn on the tap once more, filling the glass to the rim. This should result in a head taking up about one-half to three-quarters of an inch in the glass. Take care to serve the beer with the Guinness logo facing the bar patron.

While chatter endures on whether the Guinness-promoted process to achieve the perfect pour is necessary, it persists in the company's lore. In fact, visitors to the flagship Guinness Storehouse can earn a certificate if they successfully execute the perfect pour.

You can accomplish a perfect pour of Guinness at home thanks to an ingenious product design. Guinness cans contain a device: a plastic ball known and once trademarked by the brand as the widget. The widget infuses the beer with a shot of nitrogen when it's opened, which affects the amount of head generated. Once the can is infused, one should pour the beer into a tulip glass.

Many beer lovers recommend holding the glass at a 45-degree angle, as bartenders are trained to do when handling Guinness, pouring a portion of the beer and then letting it settle. After about a minute, finish filling the glass to achieve the proper ratio of foam head to beer. Granted, if you simply can't wait for a sip of stout, you can always attempt the hard pour  — fully invert the can and pour it straight down the middle of the glass. Colorado-based Left Hand Brewing recommends this method for pouring its Nitro Milk Stout, either from widget-enabled glass or pioneering widget-less bottles.

Interestingly, Guinness itself is neutral about whether one needs to observe the Guinness pour ritual at home. Its website mentions the debate over both methods and encourages home drinkers to try both.