Saturday, January 26, 2013

Guinness is a Lager

According to Paul, who read a couple of my blogs and knows far more about such things than I do, Guinness is a lager. Lager actually sounds more substantial than ale and makes it sound more impressive that I'm drinking the stuff.

I don't drink Guinness every day, but once or twice a week I down half of a bottle of the stuff. The main benefit I've noticed is that it increases my appetite, and putting on enough weight so that I no longer look like an eastern European refugee or orphan has been an endeavor to which I've devoted much effort.

I first got my hands on a bottle of Guinness on March 17 of 2011.  My mom was hosting a Saint Patrick's Day gathering, and more or less everyone there had consumed enough of either Guinness or something even more potent that no one present was paying any particular attention to what I did or did not drink. (I think my brother drank four beers that night without being noticed.)  I had a track meet the next day and was curious as to whether or not a small amount of Guinness might improve the quality of my sleep enough to actually improve my performance in the track meet the following day. Whether due to the Guinness, the placebo effect, or sheer coincidence, the next day I broke a league record in 300-meter low hurdles. It was enough to sell me on the benefits of the beverage despite the taste being so unpleasant that I still have to plug my nose to get it down.

I descend from a long line of drinkers on both side. My mother is Irish Catholic, and the drinking prowess of Irish Catholics is common knowledge. My dad's parents are both French Canadian from Quebec (also originally Catholic)  and though they gave up drinking when they converted to Mormonism, my dad and his one brother and one  sister who no longer practice the LDS faith picked up drinking where their parents left off as though no one in their lineage  had ever discontinued the practice.

I attend a University of California campus. I'm now leaning toward medical school as my post-graduate field of study, but when I started college, I wasn't sure as to whether I would go into medicine or law. A counselor who helped me to design a course of study that would be suitable for both pre-med and pre-law did so with the idea of impressing admissions panels in schools in both fields of study, but gave very little thought to my sanity as I'm  trying to get through these classes with a 4.0 intact.


10 comments:

  1. Irish. Catholic. Mass. It all adds up to Guinness. Knew it. Although you signed off one post in Gaelic, that was a dead give away.
    Tá do Ghaeilge go maith.

    I think I may have misled you. Guinness is a stout, distinct from ales and lagers.

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  2. I like the sound of stout as well.

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  3. I have lots of Celtic blood myself. Guinness is one of my husband's favorite beers. I can take it or leave it myself... I prefer German, Czech, and especially Belgian beers!

    Stouts are lovely when the weather is chilly... So are porters.

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  4. My dad loves Belgian beers. He really wasn't into any Irish libations until we went to Ireland.

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  5. Everyone ends up drinking in Ireland. Have you seen the Family Guy episode where Peter Griffin goes to find his dad in Ireland? Don't get too fond of the stout, it has no miraculous properties believe me! Did you know if you cross stout with an ale it's called a 'stale'.

    I made that last bit up.

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    1. Someday, I will get to Ireland and do a lot of drinking... like I did in Scotland a couple of months ago.

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    2. Like filming The Hangover and then coming back to shoot the The Hangover II.

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  6. Brilliant analogy, Paul. I haven't been to Scotland,though I've heard that, even though scots don't get quite the reputation of being major bruisers as the Irish do, they drink every bit as much. In Ireland drunks can pretty much crawl from one pub to the next one as they're really located in such close proximity and pretty much dot the countryside.

    Did you read or hear about some Irish legislative body voting to give permits to allow drunken driving to individuals in rural Ireland in order to prevent depression-related suicides?

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    1. "According to Paul, who read a couple of my blogs and knows far more about such things than I do,..."

      Ha,ha,ha, just re-read this, I sound like a right old soak.

      It's true a county board proposed such an idea but it will never be given any serious consideration at higher level. We have an acute problem with road deaths amongst our young people, more to do with excessive speed than alcohol it has to be said.

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