As most always had been the case, the times they were a-changin’. Games were afoot! Plots were thickening. Frederick the Great lost a nail-biter in extra innings and the Jesuits got the boot from Portugal. Bookmakers of the day took a bath on both.
It was also the year that saw the poet Robert Burns draw his first breath and, while witnessing the incoherencies around him in that best of all possible worlds, Voltaire wrote and published “Candide.” While satire has flourished in the intervening years, the legacy of optimism has yet to fully recover.
But many would say that all of that is nothing more than “sidebar” to the real story of 1759. Let us go back, then, to an unused brewery at St. James Gate in Dublin where, in a most grand display of confidence in the future thirst of his target demographic, young Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease on the property for “chump change,” as they say.
Central to his deal, of course, were the water rights, not to mention the four acres and “a copper, a kieve (kettle), a mill, two malthouses, stabling for 12 horses, an a loft to hold 200 tons of hay.” Arthur, entering history without spilling a drop, began brewing porter and ale.
Anyway, what makes this a Park City story and a Utah story and, for that matter, a global story, is that, a mere 250 years into his lease, the fruits of Arthur Guinness’ labor have become a quite familiar part of the overall barfly landscape. The word “pint” has reentered the saloon lexicon.
My recollection as to my first pint is somewhat foggy. That glorious moment probably transpired following my final truckload-full-of-books-and-vinyl move to Utah.
The buzz at my neighborhood tavern in L.A. was all about having “Anchor Steam” from up San Francisco way on tap. If you think “building” a pint of Guinness cuts too wide a swath into your lunch hour, back then, it took less time to assemble a LaSalle transmission than it did to fill a “steamer” to the brim.
So here we sit at the 250th anniversary of that proud brewing tradition with a figurative Guinness draught evolving upon the forehead-polished bar in front of us. For me, the visual process has always brought to mind a lava lamp, as the storm of swirling clouds within the Imperial-pint glass (which allows extra room for the “head”) settles.
By the second one, it can border upon the hallucinatory. There is a tumbling motion as the raw brew folds in and overlaps upon itself, a convolution of motion that continually repeats until you look away. Then, as if to announce it has located its groove, it subtly flaunts a dense, creamy beige head sitting atop a perfectly still, deeply brown, liquid gratification.
Due to the important fact that one gulps a Guinness rather than sips it, it should be noted that it is not a facial-hair-friendly beverage. This is a characteristic that, unless one continually mops his face with a bar rag after each quaff, often gets taken advantage of among “friends.” They love nothing better than seeing you foaming at the mouth while attempting to wax profound on some obscure topic.
Going back to the “gulp imperative,” one need only glance at an empty pint glass to see if it has been followed. There should appear no more than a half-dozen rings where the foam reposed between healthy slugs of one of life’s most precious elixirs.
The answer to the tenderfoot who shoves a glass toward the barkeep featuring a ring pattern similar to that of a bristlecone pine, however, is immediate probation. That sentence, of course, can always be mitigated with the buying of a few rounds.
The current bunch at St. James Gate in Dublin, as you may have heard, has decided not to allow the 250th anniversary of young Arthur signing the lease to go un-commemorated. As you can imagine with the Irish, much ballyhoo is on tap, so to speak.
September 24 is actually “Arthur’s Day” when, at 17:59 “Guinness Mean Time,” pints will be raised worldwide in honor of the auspicious and historic occasion. Dublin, itself, will be foaming at the mouth in a most singular way, of course, with live music and toasts and, quite possibly, a donnybrook or two.
The day in question may seem somewhat far off, but there’s nothing like rehearsing both the pouring and consumption of pints of Guinness draught in order to make sure that when the time does arrive, we get it right. Practice makes perfect!
Jay Meehan is a culture junkie and a free-lance writer with a background in commercial and community radio, among other pursuits. He has been a columnist and feature writer for various Park City publications going back to 1973.