In Dublin’s Guinness Store House, a towering sanctum devoted to rapturous acclamation for the world’s most celebrated liquid, a typically overwrought epigram is stenciled in giant letters on a wall: " To understand the puzzle that is a glass of Guinness, you must begin with the ingredients. " They are, we’re told, barley, hops, water, and yeast. But there’s a fifth ingredient. " You can’t touch it, yet you can feel it. You can’t see it, yet it is right in front of you ... it is carried in every glass of Guinness to every corner of the globe. That ingredient is Arthur Guinness. "
We’ll chalk up that statement’s icky, quasi-cannibalistic implications to an overzealous copywriter. But it does raise a point. Guinness, of course, has a certain ineffable quality that makes it a delight to quaff. But add in a foreign flavor, and it’s something else entirely. The same holds true for all beers.
Beer " cocktails " are no new phenomenon, of course. Everyone knows the trusty Black and Tan (half Guinness, half Bass). It looks neato, with nitrogen-light Guinness perched, precarious and black, above the deep amber of a Bass base. Better, it tastes great, with the beers’ contrasting consistencies and flavors complementing each other, a fine example of Anglo-Irish concord. Other tried-and-true recombinant concoctions include the Black Velvet (half Guinness, half Champagne) and its less highfalutin cousin, the Black Velveteen (half Guinness, half cider). In the former, the bubbly’s tart effervescence counteracts the viscous rigidity of the Liffey-black brew. Same goes for the latter, but with a sweeter touch.
But those leave us flat. So we asked Kristen, who handles the 24 ever-changing taps at Cambridge Common (1667 Mass Ave, Cambridge; 617-547-1228) for a new drug. Her first suggestion was the Black Magic, which she says is a favorite of patrons at that bastion of beer enthusiasts. A deft 50-50 blend of Guinness and apricot-infused Magic Hat #9, it’s just fruity enough, with the brawny Guinness giving it the right amount of heft. The Bumblebee (half Guinness, half honey lager or hefeweizen) is just as smooth, with a soft mouthfeel and the faintest trace of sweetness (plus, served in a curvaceous imperial pint, it really looks like a bee). The Koala Bear is Guinness up top with Foster’s Lager down under. A Baked Apple (half Guinness, half Harpoon Winter Warmer) is a favorite at Bukowski (50 Dalton Street, Boston; 617-437-9999) every year when winter rolls around, says Suzi, who tends bar at that microbrew mecca.
There’s more than one way to do a Black and Blue, which pairs stout with blueberry ale. Bukowski sometimes counts Sea Dog Brewing Company’s fine Blue Paw Wild Blueberry Wheat Ale among its rotating 15 taps (Guinness is a constant). For a homegrown version, visit Boston Beer Works (61 Brookline Avenue, Boston; 617-536-2337) when its renowned Bunker Hill Blueberry Ale — which is filled with actual bobbing blueberries — is on offer (most of the time), and mix it up with the brewery’s Curley’s Irish Stout or Buckeye Oatmeal Stout.
But by no means does stout have a monopoly on mixology. Another perennial favorite is the Snakebite, the potent mix of cider with ale or lager that’s verboten in many pubs in England and Ireland for fear of the debauched damage that might ensue. Fortunately, most stateside bars are amenable. In fact, Kristen at Cambridge Common had no compunction about going one step beyond and fulfilling our request for a Purple Death, which infuses a pint of half-Bass, half-cider with the regal raspberry flavor of an ounce of Chambord. It’s a little sweet, a little tart — and not unlike how we always imagined a " Flaming Moe " (from The Simpsons) would taste.
Another intriguing combo, one purportedly used by piss-artist extraordinaire Ernest Hemingway as a hangover cure, is the Red Eye, an even split of an ale or lager of one’s choosing with tomato juice or Bloody Mary mix. We prefer the latter; eggs are also optional — we opted out. It was better than we’d expected, tasting, in the words of one drinking buddy, " kinda like carbonated spaghetti sauce. "
At Redbones (66 Chester Street, Somerville; 617-628-2200), bar-dude Joe was happy to throw together whatever requests we threw at him. The recipe for an Orange Julius (equal parts vodka, amaretto, orange juice, and beer), which we’d stumbled across on the Web, looked intriguing, but it didn’t specify what sort of beer is used. Reasoning that lemons are de rigueur with wheat beers, we went with a hefeweizen. Verdicts were mixed: it tasted fine at first, reminiscent of the weird citrus soft drinks (Fanta, Lucozade) one finds across the pond. But it became less and less palatable as the pint went on. Still, it’s a great source of vitamin C.
We fared slightly better with a nameless drink we’d read about that seems to be the Scottish version of the tactlessly named Irish Car Bomb (Guinness, Jameson, Bailey’s Irish Cream). An ounce of Scotch (use a blend — single malt would be wasted) and an ounce of Drambuie are combined in a pint glass with a Scottish ale like Belhaven. (Redbones had none, so we tried Newcastle.) The deep-brown behemoth was peaty and medicinal, with a darkly mysterious aroma. And it was very, very strong.
These are just a few of the endless combos out there, just waiting to be dreamt up. Try some of your own: experiment and be fearless, for in the inexact science of beer miscegenation, open minds are a virtue. Far from thinking you’re strange, the bartender will most likely be impressed by your derring-do. We asked Bukowski barkeep Suzi, for instance, about the weirdest concoction she’s ever served.
" Hmmm ... weird, " she pondered. " Some people will order just half a beer. That always strikes me as very odd. "
That’s one glass that’s half empty.
Mike Miliard can be reached at mmiliard[a]phx.com
