Lovely Day for a Guinness

 

It has been said that April is the cruelest month, but having been born on the 6th (and also abhorring all things Eliot), I disagree with that assertion most whole-heartedly.  To me, the wet and grey months of January and February are far more dispiriting and soul-squelching.  It is during said months that I often find myself longing to seek refuge from the depths of winter by cozying up in a homely pub with a rich, dark, creamy pint of Guinness.  Being somewhat of a newcomer to this burg, I wasn’t sure where I could find the “best” pint of Guinness in Houston.  Sure, I had seen numerous ads and signs making such bold declarations, and I knew a cheesy Lucky Charms-esque establishment from a true pub, but I wanted the best:  a two-part pour, a nice thick head, good temperature, and a knowledgeable and witty mixologist at the tap.  But taste alone wasn’t enough—I needed the whole package; a good atmosphere, proper glasses, good music, and some characters to keep me company whilst I imbibed.  

 

I decided to enlist the lads at PIIYF to help me on my quest to find the finest pint in the land. I deemed them arbiters of good taste after reading their posts on the site, but I had never met any of these individuals except for Robert, and I only knew him through the Schwartz, so it was anybody’s guess as to how this whole thing would turn out.

 

The preparations were intense—chain upon chain of biting, condescending, and sophomoric emails were sent, a few times I questioned my own manhood, (how that’s possible for a female to do, I’m not sure, but somehow those guys managed to make me do it), and wondered whether or not I really wanted to knock back a good deal of alcohol with these strangers.  However, the gauntlet had been thrown, the date picked, and the rules lain down, and so dawned the day.  

 

The rules were as such:  start time 4 PM at the Mucky Duck, one Guinness per bar, 30 minutes per bar, and plans to eat when we got hungry.    

Cast of characters:  Robert, Garrett, his lovely wife (and our DD), Megan, Adam, Liz, Joey, Joe, David, Kai, and myself.  My husband, Brian, and our friend, Pete, joined up with us later on during the proceedings.

 

 

It was done.

 

After all the buildup, I found myself sitting alone at the Mucky Duck at 4:30 drinking ice water.  Ice water.  Alone.  Me.  Points off for punctuality.  I explained what we were doing to the quizzical (and might I say rather pushy) bartender (doesn’t the guy get any patrons who just want to drink ice water at the bar on a beautiful, sunny day?), who promptly brought Joe and myself together.  We had settled into a big table in the back when the rest of the crew rolled up in the Tahoe and the games began.  What follows is a list of the pubs, ranked approximately in the order of best pours:

 

 

1. The Mucky Duck:

Tied for best pour with McElroy’s; great temperature, with a smooth and mellow taste.  Poured correctly (with a shamrock on top!), it had a beautiful creamy head that left a ring on the glass and a mustache on the upper lip.  The deck was lovely, and it was a brilliant way to start the crawl, for we would all too soon be disappointed.  (see The Harp)

2.  McElroy’s:

McElroy’s sold us on a couple of points; there was a Guinness special, which convinced us it was time to take those extra quarters and squander them on a round of car bombs (which may or may not be the reason that few have strong opinions about the Guinness at every bar following this one), the barkeep was playing excellent music that he had picked out, and the back deck was conducive to begin music debates, such as do I really like Califone or not?  Again, the pour was properly executed and the temperature perfect.  A cozy little spot of heaven.  

*  Note:  Due perhaps to the aforementioned cah bombs, from this point on, the comments on the Blackberry link become, shall we say, more…esoteric.  We may have spent more than 30 minutes here.  We may have promised the bartender who liked cool music that we’d be back at nine to drink with him when he got off his shift. We may have exited whistling The Scorpion’s “Winds of Change.”  

3.  Firkin and Phoenix:

This one was doin’ a lot wrong but a few things right, so it ranked third on the list.  It looked like the set of a high school theatre troupe’s performance of “Fall of the House of Usher,” and has the dubious distinction of being a Canadian pub (which is…what, exactly?  I saw no hockey paraphernalia anywhere).  However, the bartender was all business while pouring the pints.  A two-part pour in the right glass, nicely executed, with a good, thick head and a good temperature—not too cold, so you were able to really taste the beer.  One other highlight was having the young couple sitting next to us pick up their food and move to another table within ten seconds of our group sitting down; they undoubtedly found the stopwatch daunting.

 

4.  Kenneally’s:  

This was agreed to be a pretty good pour; it was also our food stop.  Most of us were solely focused on ranking our top five Dylan songs (kind of sorry I brought that up, it’s been bothering me ever since), so I don’t think anyone was too focused on their pint (or paying the tab for that matter, as the waitress had to chase us out into the parking lot): but I think all were in agreement that the pizza was pretty damn tasty for an Irish pub, so their Guinness has to be good…right?  The St. James Gate Brewery might do well to come up with a pepperoni-Guinness hybrid—it’s pretty tasty and would definitely outsell Tequiza.  Liz was forced to buy darts, and the service was not at all courteous, so it did not make it in the top three.

 

5.  Red Lion:

I am going to rank this one beneath Kenneally’s based on the characters at the bar.  Well, one in particular.  I don’t know how good the pint was, because at this point they were all starting to taste all right and the 30 minutes seemed to be going by at a much faster clip.  I met a gentleman with a strong British accent who resembled Kris Kringle and swore that he had grown up in East Texas.  After fifteen minutes of attempts to strong-arm the truth out of him (aka asking him where he was from over and over again), he refused to alter his story.  I still don’t buy it, and I almost threw my pint at him, but for the sake of journalism.  Joey ate again here, and swears that his Indian egg rolls were the highlight, so maybe the Guinness wasn’t that great.  What can you do—it is an English pub—oppressors!  

 

6.  The Stag’s Head:

Eh.  Not too bad, not too good.  It claimed to be the “reader’s choice” best place to drink Guinness  probably would have gotten more points if we had not had such high hopes for it; walking in, one can’t help but notice the bold declaration permanently affixed to the door proclaiming it to be the best pint in Houston.  It was just a little thin and again, the temperature was a little too cold; it didn’t have much flavor.  Garrett got his Guinness in a Newcastle glass, which is rather poor form, and not even a Dwight Shrute look-alike could redeem it for him.

 

7.  The Harp:

This was our second stop and had been pitched as being a contender for best pint, but the Guinness was, to use an Irish term, draveel.  It was ice-cold, which may be fine when serving Miller High Life (no offense, Schwartz), but this Guinness had no heft to it.  The head was almost pure white, not the creamy brownish-beige it should be, and was very watery.  It tasted like it had been brewed in a plastic cup.  The bartender was strangely attired in a cow t-shirt, but didn’t have the ironic sense of humor necessary to pull it off.  The vibe was more Lilith-Fair than Irish pub, and the patrons (all female) looked as though they were ready and willing to shotgun motor oil from a can as a chaser for their Lone Stars.  I was waiting for one to either break an empty bottle upside the head or crush a can on her forehead.  Joey was itching to get some numbers.  The upside was that their bathrooms were indoors and in working order, the deck was a glorious place to soak up some sun, and the other patrons did keep us entertained.  It also brought Rick Astley

back into my consciousness, so I must thank God for the small things.  

 

Kay’s, Gingerbread Man, Ron’s, Kelvin Arms, Bank Draft, Treasures:

The remaining pubs saw the evening disintegrate a bit; one member of the crew seems to have either a grossly expired license or is on an Al Qaeda watch list, because we were unable to get into a few places in Rice Village, even after trying to cajole the numerous bouncers, none of whom seemed to understand the gravity of our mission.  No worries, though, as we were able to improvise (surprisingly nimbly, considering how far along in the crawl we were).  Gingerbread Man certainly did not disappoint, and truth be told, it’s hard to just get a Guinness there when there’s so much else to try.  Kay’s pours a pretty good Guinness for an icehouse, and I did enjoy some delicious free popcorn at Bank Draft (or Kelvin Arms…did we even go there?), which filled me up so much I (shamefully) tossed a nearly full Guinness in the trash.  At least I hope it was the trash.  If not, it was the floor.  Ron’s was noted for having a great Kronenberg, and as for Treasures, well, when we lost Joey to it, he still managed to  keep the link and said he didn’t

                                                                                 have one, but he bets it would have sucked.  

 

- Catie