Why Uncle Arthur’s pints are polar

By Maolsheachlainn O’Ceallaigh

SOME older people say the warm Irish welcome is becoming colder, others swear they enjoyed Mediterrenean summers in their day. But when even the treasured pint of Guiness is dropping in temperature, have we chilled out too much?

St James’s Gate’s pint o’ plain has fallen ten degrees in temperature since the early 1960s. Not only this, but Uncle Arthur now seems intent on cryogenically preserving the nation’s taste-buds by brewing a special extra cold beer at three degrees.

Cryptically named Extra Cold Guiness, it was sprung on us in 1997 and has made real that hoary novelistic cliché: "I felt something cold run down the pit of my stomach."

So why the change? Is it a subliminal anticipation of the scorching day when the Ozone Layer finally gives up the ghost? Or has the simple Ireland of the past become so feverish and intense that we all need serious cooling down?

The Troubles, the strains of maintaining a Tiger Economy, a torrent of Tribunals: were they the catalyst for our descent into Guinness’s new Ice Age?