Guinness Red
Dec 7th, 2007 by chris
It was a Friday afternoon, we had unfortunately not been sent any freebies this week to drink trial in the office and blog about so we decided to head on down to our local O’Neills. I have seen the marketing campaigns, tried in vain to contact a Guinness Brand Manager via numerous methods - including their blog (if there is one out there that actually reads this – how about contacting us?) to give us more info / a list of pubs that serve it (to put on BITE), but I still hadn’t tried Guinness Red yet. You’d think we would have been an ideal platform to help promote it considering it wasn’t at every pub! But anyway…
Anyway, onto the drink. It pours like a normal Guinness, including the traditional two second wait before topping off the pint. It has a thick, creamy head like a normal Guinness and it looks (apart from if you hold it upto the light) like a normal Guinness too. It’s not really that red, more reddish. But that is where the comparison ends. Oh wait, it has the same ABV too (4.1%). I was quite surprised actually, it tastes good – BUT – it tastes like something is missing. Have you drank Diet Coke after drinking normal Coke for years and felt it was lacking something? Well, Guinness Red has that same feeling. It doesn’t feel as heavy or ‘thick’ as normal Guinness, but it does still have that distinctive taste and will still give you that distinctive ‘tache too. To be honest, I would drink it again (actually, I first tried it and then immediately before putting the pint down drank it again to double-check it like I had missed something) – I think it’s the ideal ‘pub lunch’ drink. 
The sort of drink you’d have at lunchtime midweek with colleagues but don’t want to start ‘drinking’ – we’ve all been there, have one pint at lunch and it goes straight to your head because you choose a bloody salad or something with it, well, this is the drink to order! I see Guinness Red as a drink I will order again if I am in a pub that sells it, but I don’t quite see myself travelling to another pub JUST to order it. Sorry Guinness, I am lazy.
Overall, I would give Guinness Red a favourable 8.5/10.
Loading ...
Hmm, its pleasant enough. I have never seen the fuss regarding Guinness. Compared to almost every other stout I’ve had, it’s thin and watery.
I agree with JonW999 , Guinness is a shadow of what it once was.Its problem is that it’s got a lot of competition these days and many micro stouts make it taste very ordinary.
Love Guinness, My local the racehorse in Taunton is one of the best places to drink it.
Guinness seem obsessed with getting other drinkers to start drinking Guinness when they should be looking more at the current drinkers of the black stuff and how to keep them.
Don’t think I’ll be trying the new Guinness red, why mess with such a classic drink?
Wish they could bottle the smell of St James Gate, Dublin, that would make me want more Guinness.
We got some free vouchers to try tis stuff last week. We had about 20 and gave 17 away!!
We didn’t get past the first pint, and even that was struggle.
It is very thin, hardly any body, and the lingering after taste is just like tinned beer you used toi drink a long time ago - i.e., all you could taste was the tin!
This is very unpleasant stuff