Would you mix the Irish stout with an energy drink? Add coffee to your pint? We put the latest trending serves to the test.
Imagine being a forward-thinking drinks producer right now. You’re looking at research, carefully crafting new and unique flavours and trying your best to capture trends while also pushing past them. And then, over here, you’ve got Guinness – the stalwart stout that’s somehow managed to shake off its old-fashioned reputation and become the biggest beer in the world. And not only is Guinness outdoing the new guys with an old beer, but this stout – affectionately known as ‘black gold’ – is also inspiring new trends and ways of drinking. The black gold rush is on, guys.
Guinness, if you’re still not acquainted, is a 250-year-old Irish stout (a type of dark beer), known for its black-brown colour, creamy head and silky smooth texture. As aficionados will tell you, there’s an art to pouring Guinness that takes time, and it should be done in two stages. But despite the resurgent love for the classic ale, the new wave of Guinness drinkers are also happy to drink it their own way. And some of these new Guinness trends are far from traditional.
So, what do these Guinness drinking trends look like? And are they actually worth trying? Let’s find out.
Here’s the thing: Guinness tastes a bit like coffee, so adding coffee should be a bit of a no-brainer, right? That’s the idea behind the Turbo Guinness, which caffeinates the stout by adding a shot of espresso to the pint glass. The result is a coffee-flavoured Guinness upgrade (or downgrade, depending on your point of view) that should also provide a decent energy boost.
Apparently, the turbo trend started on TikTok (because of course it did) thanks to @masonmcdonald5, although the idea of combining Guinness and coffee has been around for a while. The beer brand released its own Guinness Cold Brew a few years back, and people have long used Guinness to punch up their Espresso Martinis.
- Rating: 8/10
- Verdict: Coffee and Guinness make a lot of sense together. It would also be good with the richer Guinness Extra Stout.
Energy drinks and alcohol are no strange bedfellows, as anyone who’s ever tried a Jägerbomb or vodka Red Bull will tell you. The Gonster, though, takes the combo to strange new places.
To make a Gonster, you need two parts: the ‘G’, which is Guinness, and the ‘onster’ – Monster energy drink. The two are then poured into a pint glass as separate layers, with the lurid yellow-green Monster on the bottom, and the impenetrably dark Guinness on top. If that whole idea strikes fear into your heart, that’s totally understandable – the Gonster is definitely more Halloween than St Patrick’s Day. Despite the eyebrow-raising recipe, the Gonster has become popular online, although we think that has to do with shock value and novelty, more than flavour.
- Rating: 3/10
- Verdict: Why does this exist? Monster destroys everything in its path. It gets extra points for its other name – a ‘Billie Irish’, a great reference to Billie Eilish’s green-hair era.
Flavour, texture, aroma – these are words that, up until recently, were not regularly used to describe non-alcoholic beer. Now, though, the world has entered its NA beer era and things are getting serious (and delicious). When Guinness Draught 0.0 launched in 2020, everyone was shocked by how genuinely Guinness-like it was – and this is exactly why the 60/40 is such a surprising hit.
60/40 is a blend of Guinness 0.0 and the regular Guinness Draught, with the numbers referring to the ratio. The result is a beer that drops from 4.2% to around 1.7% ABV while still tasting basically the same as a full-strength Guinness. Apparently the first one was mixed in Dublin’s Palmerstown House pub as a low-alc version of Guinness and it has since blown up into an understandable trend. Honestly, a light version of Guinness seems like a genius idea, so we can see why this has taken off.
- Rating: 10/10
- Verdict: Maybe we need a lower-alc version of black gold (hint hint, Guinness) but this DIY version really hits the mark.
The Badger has been around for a while, first ‘delighting and horrifying’ English drinkers back in 2016. But riding the recent wave of weirdo Guinness creations, the Badger is very much back in the spotlight.
Like the terrifying Gonster, the Badger is a layered drink – though here you’ve got a single bottle of Smirnoff Ice on the bottom of your pint glass instead of Monster, with Guinness on top. The name Badger is, presumably, a reference to the eponymous woodland creature’s two-tone fur. Either that or a badger invented the drink, which somehow seems just as likely.
- Rating: 5/10
- Verdict: It’s sort of like a layered take on the South Aussie lemonade-and-stout combo called a ‘portagaff’, which gives it a little extra cred.
Ahh, warm summer days. The smell of barbecues filling the yard, jasmine in bloom, and the perfect weather for a refreshing Guinn and Tonic. Yep, replace the gin with Guinn(ess) and add tonic over ice, and you’ve got a Guinn and Tonic.
Apparently, the idea (from bartender Taylor Yale at Hartley’s in New York) came from seeing a cafe serving espresso and tonic – a pretty trendy way to get a caffeine fix in summer in its own right. Taylor’s take gets a little fancy with the Spanish sparkling wine Cava as well as Amaro Montenegro for something that ends up as a proper cocktail. But a mix of just Guinness and tonic water is totally acceptable and not too far from a cold brew and tonic.
- Rating: 6/10
- Verdict: It’s reasonably balanced, got a good name and pretty low in alcohol, so we’re into it. The Hartley’s version would probably get a 9/10.
