Guinness experiments with a speedier pour - Weekly Specialty Beer Report - Brief Article

Modern Brewery Age, March 4, 2002

AP--For years, Guinness has relied on the loyalty of Irish customers willing to wait 1 minute, 59 seconds, for the traditional, black draft beer to fill their pint-size mugs.

But due to declining sales, the company is now testing a new procedure that would pump the beer much faster.

"We have got to move with the times, and the brand must evolve. We must take all the opportunities that we can," a Guinness spokeswoman said last week.

Such quick-pour pints would contradict the beer's long-standing image, based on advertisements saying that good things only come to people who wait, but Guinness says there would be no change in taste.

Details about the speed of the new technique, the pump it uses and the outlets where quick-pints are being tested, are being kept under wraps for now.

But Guinness hopes to win back drinkers in today's fast-moving society. "In outlets where it is really busy, if you walk in after 9 o'clock in the evening, there will be a cloth over the Guinness pump because it takes longer to pour than other drinks," said the spokeswoman.

She reassured Guinness devotees that the new technique was only being considered in these busier outlets.

Diageo, which owns the Guinness brand, announced Thursday that sales of the beer were down I percent globally, 4 percent in Ireland and flat in Great Britain.

Meanwhile, in today's competitive market, Guinness isn't the only brand considering ways of filling pints faster.

Carlsberg-Tetley, the fourth largest brewer in Britain, is marketing a new tap designed by scientists at the University of Birmingham that will fill a pint of lager in 14 seconds, 30 percent faster than a normal tap.

Guinness has also tested a Guinness Extra Cold in the U.K. and Ireland, bringing the temperature down two Celsius. The company will not introduce Guinness Extra Cold in the U.S., since it already served colder here.