Pouring Guinness and the mystery of the 5.76 seconds. Spoiler alert: The Koreans are innocent

Yeah Guinness. Legendary stuff. Apparently pouring a perfect Guinness draught is a high art form requiring precise movements and perfect timing. It doesn't happen fast...takes a long time to pour a perfect Guinness. Now, it seems there is a little mystery about exactly how long. Oh Wikipedia, you're a cheating girlfriend. More about that soon.

First I have to do some sort of Dan Brown Da Vinci Code self-flagellation ritual for not having posted a blog in forever. Pause to reflect on my sins. Begin self-whipping. Oh shit, now I've got Devo playing in my head. Postpone atonement. White-boy robo dance.  

So I come across this infographic posting on FaceBook. 29 Interesting beer facts. Holy Schnikes! I love beer! I love facts! Tommy Boy rules. //Cue:music// "She's a maniac...."

Hmm. Beer facts. Whats this...119.5 seconds to pour the perfect Guinness. Thats interesting. I mentally pause. I need to savor and absorb this fact as I play in a weekly trivia contest. Our quizmaster, Steve Sparks, starts each weekly quiz sipping a Guinness. I've got to ask him about this. Uh,oh...I think to myself, I better research this fact. Sometimes I have different source material than Steve. I mean he mistakenly believes that Juneau is the largest city in terms of area in the US. So, I must research beer facts. Be prepared.

Research begins. Googling "guinness perfect pour" I come to the Guinness Wikipedia page. Of course, Wikipedia is almost always the first stop in research anything in popular culture. You want to know the etymology of "jumping the shark"? Wikipedia baby, Wikipedia. Yep, here it is, the Guinness Wikipedia page:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guinness

And here is the fact I want:  

What Diageo calls the "perfect pint" of Draught Guinness is the product of a "double pour", which according to the company should take 125.26 seconds.^[63] 


There is even a source reference for this information. Hah and double hah. So apparently the perfect pour is 125.26 seconds. 5.76 seconds longer than the infographic. Wikipedia says so! With citations!

My girlfriend loves me. Kiss kiss.

Well, armed with this new knowledge, prior to the next trivia quiz, I proudly ask Steve if he knows the proper amount of time to pour a Guinness...without hesitation Steve replies "119 seconds". I tell him that Diageo says it 125.26 seconds. Steve's reaction was instantaneous and apoplectic...he was a pallet full of Mentos and Diet Coke exploding all over at Lauren's restaurant. "Its always been 119 seconds...for three hundred years its been 119 seconds. Who the hell is Diageo? Fucking Koreans!". Now for a little background, Steve was born in Birmingham UK and was a pub owner for maybe 20 years. When it comes to Guinness knowledge, he kinda knows what he is talking about. I think Steve has Guinness grand-master status. You can probably tell that just looking at him.

Respecting Steve's blood pressure, I silently resolve to do further research this Guinness perfect pour issue.

Research re-started, the ADD kicked in again and I got distracted with Guinness history. Did you know that prior to 1939 a Guinness brewer (employee) who wanted to marry a catholic was asked to resign. I'm sure "asked" was a euphemism.

So, you are marrying a Catholic, eh Malone?

Then there was a 20-30 year cooling off period and Guinness apparently starting hiring Catholics in the 1960's. Ah progress. And did you know the original lease signed in 1759 for the St James Gate Brewery location in Dublin was for 9,000 years? 9,000 years!!! Who knew the Irish were such visionaries? Or that lazy? Or that good at typos? 9,000 years! That beats the hell out of the Japanese style 100 year business plan.

So I go back at look at the source reference for the 125.26 second claim. Here is where things get weird.
The link to substantiate the claim is to a 2009 cached document linked to Guinness.com. For the uninitiated a cached document is something that was posted online but has been subsequently edited and/or deleted. Google is insiduous that way. You think that those old pictures of you in platform shoes have all been burned? Nope, Google has copies.You can't hide from history. But try as I might I can't pull up the old web page. Maybe the cached link will work for you. Here it is:

http://wayback.archive.org/web/20090115233622/http://www.guinness.com/row_en/beer/draught/

I have to believe the document existed, but how? Where? What master criminal or PR firm (as if there is a difference) has wiped the fingerprints clean? Where is the original document? Me don't know...me confused. Who has redacted the Warren report? Was there more than one shooter? Holy ghost of Rosemary Woods, where is the missing 5.76 seconds?

So I reverse course. See if I can't find something to validate the original claim of 119.5 seconds. Immediately, I find this:

Fact: The perfect Guinness 'two-part pour' takes 119.5 seconds. One thing is never in doubt, Guinness is worth the wait.  
Source: http://www.diageo.com/en-ie/ourbrands/categories/pages/beers.aspx

Thats a current link. Readable. Online now. Not cached. And its on the Diageo website.Yeah Diageo, the parent company of Guinness. Apologies to the Koreans. You would have to believe Diageo is an authoritative source. So whatever heresy was briefly published in 2009 has been scrubbed clean. Offending parties ex-communicated. History properly revised. No shooter on the grassy knoll. Kiss a Catholic.

Of course this means my wiki girlfriend has cheated again. Sigh. Tramp. I'll probably take her back again though. I'm forgiving that way.

I guess a lot has happened in the internet world since my last blog. I'd still like to see the original 125.26 seconds document. Or have a little talk with the no doubt besotted editors of the Guinness Wikipedia page Better yet, more research. Field trip! Woohoo Dublin. I have 5.76 seconds to spare.

Post Mortem: While the Diageo website substantiates the 119.5 second claim, the Guinness website is strangely silent about the issue. No time frame for the perfect pour is mentioned. The ultimate authority is now silent about the issue. Conspiracy? Cover-up? Oliver Stone...you listening? There is a movie here.