You can find Guinness in a pub and also in a pud.

Pudding reminds us of our childhood – not eating the black sticky cake when we were wee kids; more like reading about it in our then favourite Enid Blyton books. We used to wonder how it tastes like but wouldn’t necessarily go out and buy one of our own (what’s treacle, BTW?). So good thing we received a canister each delivered to us on Xmas week. Containing a stated 10% Guinness, this pudding will bring a wry smile to those who partake of this very English tradition. The good folks at Asia Pacific Breweries, as always, took good care to vicariously spend a festivity with its fans, this time via a dessert with deep tradition.

Plastic fantastic

Now we’ve never really indulged in a real pudding before (does a liquor-rich Xmas fruit cake from Big Sister count?) so we’re really excited. The pudding comes, thoughtfully, in four servings per package, and is microwavable. We give thanks to the genius who invented this easy-to-ingest packaging. Not only because there’s Guinness in the ingredient list, but more important, there is no washing up to do! According to the instructions, just stick a knife to pierce the seal and whack it into the microwave for a minute on full power and you’ve got an elegant English Christmas in a plastic dish.

Wonder if the British troops serving abroad in combat get issued these today if there are out in the field? And oh – we noticed that apparently the French (or Quebecans) eat this too – the only other set of instructions is in French.

Adrian, we said hello to Ah-Ter for you and we heard, "Harp, cannot hear."

We’re not sure whether Arthur Guinness got any celebs of his time to sing at his disposal but that’s exactly what Arthur’s Day is all about. The folks at Guinness have been organizing Arthur’s Day across several cities worldwide including Dublin, KL, Lagos and New York with acts like Black Eyed Peas, Jamie Callum, Tom Jones, Sugababes belting out for Guinness fans. Last weekend, we got invited to Arthur’s Day in Jakarta with Lifehouse rocking late into the night.

Lifehouse doing a toast with the Guinness team

Other than Rivermaya, we didn’t know any of the opening acts, and even with Lifehouse, the only song we’ve got on iPod is Hanging By A Moment. But all that was mitigated by the fact that we were treated to the brilliant dark liquid all night and being in place like Jakarta, it’s difficult not to “party like a rock star”!

Arthur would be very happy with our performance.

To the folks at Guinness Singapore, thanks for the party and cheers to Arthur!

Now, being true to our cause of “Have drink, will travel”, we located a brewpub at the basement of Plaza Senayan. It’s called Brewhouse and apparently they brew an ale/porter. Apparently because they were out of it when we tried to order some. They’ve got Carlsberg on tap and a few other bottle beers like San Miguel, Corona. If you’re misguided into shopping there, check it out, if not, suggest you take your empty throats elsewhere.

Whether you've been bad or good, Guinness is coming to town with a feast & complimentary drinks for you

It’s been a tough year. You’ve worked hard. The time has come to party even harder. So if you haven’t started planning a gazillion parties in a row till 2011, here’s one to start you off in our latest Good Things Must Share (GTMS) series of alco-helpful posts. A low cost specially prepared X’mas buffet spread with two complimentary Guinness, what’s there to be blue about this season? There’ll be food vouchers to be won as well as a Secret Santa activity, we’re sure there’s gonna be lots of cheer and merry making at this annual Guinness gig. The only thing missing may be gorgeous Guinness Santarinas to lift the spirits even higher! Hey Guinness folks, you listening?

Too bad one of us 175proofers will be out of town and not able to make it. But rest assured he’ll be toasting to the revellers from where he is with a pint of the black stuff too!

Book now at http://guinnessxmas-efbevent.eventbrite.com/

1. Which is the 175proofers’ favourite ‘pint of black stuff’ that contains only 198 calories per pint. That is less than most light beer, wine, OJ, or even light milk.
2. Which city in South East Asia has a population of 23 million people, the 4th largest urban area in the world, no less, and will be playing host to the next Arthur’s Day on 4 Dec 2010?
3. Which two lucky chaps have been invited by to party with Arthur this weekend?
   

   Par-tay!

   Answers:

1. Guinness (Duh!)
2. Jakarta (Surprised?)
3. The 175proofers! (we’re sure you’d guess it by now)

So anyways, we’ve been invited by the kind folks from Guinness in Singapore to attend Arthur’s Day in Jakarta, Indonesia this weekend. It will be a great concert and party with VIP priviledges, we can only imagine! We’ll be hanging out with 6 fans from the Guinness Facebook Fans too along with most of the Guinness Brand team – drinking Guinness with like-minded stout-aholics, rocking to Lifehouse, Rivermaya, Superman is Dead and other local acts. There are worse ways to spend a weekend, I’m sure.

We’re really excited to be invited on our first official overseas junket. Stay tuned as we reveal more about our experience at Arthur’s Day in Indonesia! Now to go pack in the Guinness T-shirt and other dress-up paraphernalia we’ve loyally amassed over the years!

BTW here’s a Guinness Gem we came across: Did you know the perfect pour should take 119.50 seconds. It is a result of a double pour at a 45 degree angle. The result a creamy head on a smooth dark beer served at 6 degrees Celsius. Next time you order a pint, time your bartender to make sure that you’re getting the best pint possible. More here.

At $10 a pint, newly opened Molly Roffey’s pub has to be offering the cheapest Guinness draft pints in town. We can’t think of another place that offers this at a lower price, even during happy hour! But it’s a limited time only till October. Where is it? It’s located at 51 Bras Basah Road Plaza By The Park, next to the Singapore Art Museum.

The theme of the ad is definitely about soccer and Guinness takes the safe route of sticking to its ‘greatness’ campaign tagline – ‘there’s a drop of greatness in every man’. We quite like this feel-good ad but it didn’t blow us away – not like the Somersby Apple Cider did. You decide for yourself. We’ll bring you more World Cup ads even as the big beer brands pour in lots of dough to serve you a campaign cocktail of beer, balls and babes.

VB ad for the every-man

Budweiser ‘Wassup’ Ad

Boddington’s beer advert 1992

FLASH BEER Australia Flashdance , mmm Beer

Guinness – Surfer ( extended )

In the lead up to Arthur’s Day, Guinness is launching a global consumer promotion in July 2009. Arthur’s Day will feature a series of global events which will take place in September in Kuala Lumpur, Dublin, New York, Lagos, and Yaounde.

Where is Yaounde? Anyway, I love my Guinness draft – I love sitting at the bar, in an Irish pub, watching it being filled from the tap: the half pour, settle, the top up, settle and finally, if you’re lucky, a shamrock drawn with the downstream on the head. Slurp! Makes me wanna rush out for a pint at my fave Irish pub now.

Any other Guinness lovers out there?

In my course of work, I end up visiting and checking out many hotels. This time round, I went round several in the Causeway Bay area and there’re basically only two 4-star hotels in that bustling area and a few boutique hotels. But the 5-star Crowne Plaza will be opening there in October.

Anyway, sticking to the subject if booze, I did a site inspection of Excelsior Hotel and checked out the basement Dickens Bar. The staff were preparing for lunch but what caught my eye was the number of beer taps and in particular, a Marston’s Pedigree draft.

I promised myself to attempt a return after the day’s business obligations and did exactly that.

Dicken’s has to be one of the best pub finds in Hong Kong. It has 11 taps including the Pedigree ale. As it was served, it looked like a typical British ale, light amber in colour and took some time to settle, building a nice, heavy layer of froth.

But what struck me was the sweet taste. At first, I thought the glass was dirty, shifted around the glass and took another gulp. But the sweet taste was unmistakable. It’s a sweet, fruity, creamy ale and the sweetness linger through the after taste. For the guys out there, if you like Hoegaarden but think it’s too girly to be seen with a pint in your hand, Pedigree could be your next best alternative. Unfortunately, I doubt you’d find this ale available readily in Asia Pacific.

The selling point of this joint must be the 11 beer taps, including Victoria Bitter! Seriously, how often do you find VB on tap? I’ve been to Sydney, Melbourne, Perth so many times and hardly seen the green label available fresh in most pubs. But here it is in Hong Kong! Other taps included are the usual suspects like Tiger, Heineken, Carlsberg, Strongbow, Hoegaarden, Kilkenny, Leffe, Guinness and San Miguel.

It does have a decent selection of bottles too including regional brews like Tsing Tao, Blue Girl or try the Guinness Foreign Extra Stout. Still, with 11 tap, it has to be one of the city’s most crowded bar tops and why would you drink bottles?

If you know of another pub in Hong Kong with more taps, do let us know!