Holsten Pils v Guinness

Holsten Pils

Style- Pilsner

ABV- 5%

Price- £3.98 at my local offy

Originated- Hamburg


Guinness

Style- Porter/Stout

ABV- 4.2%

Price- Averages about £3 a pint

Originated- Dublin

Overview
Two very contrasting styles. One is the quintessential drink of Ireland, the other a proud representative of Hamburg. Well maybe not so much in the case of Holsten. It once proudly boasted that it was only brewed in the German port city, and sported an ABV of close to 6%, before it was swallowed up by the Carlsberg company in 2004. It now is a meeker 5%, and is brewed throughout the EU. This fate nearly befell Guinness, whose parent company Diagio, made noises about moving it away from it's St James gate brewery in Dublin. It claimed the catch all excuse of reducing the "environmental" impact of the plant, but thankfully the Dublin City Council stood up to the evil multi national, and passed a law preventing re-development of the site. So it remains in it's spiritual home for now. The controversy surrounding Holsten Pils revolves around it's shrinking bottle size in pubs, although the price has remained the same. I do enjoy Pils, but refuse to drink it in pubs, and even considered adding it to the Tesco's list, but it is a good mass market lager, so narrowly avoided joining the likes of ASDA and Sparks on my personal boycott list.

Odds
Too close to call. Guinness is very much an acquired taste, and there are plenty who cannot stand the taste ( I think it's lovely). It particularly comes into it's own when you are faced with a back to back bender, as it is a nice change from the fuzziness of lager. Holsten was my choice of beer as a youth, and I hold fond memories of staggering home assed on the stuff.