The iconic New Zealand film Goodbye Pork Pie presented a snapshot of Wellington, the city of my birth and raising. The film presented Wellington as a rain-kissed gothic city full of dark dodgy mechanic shops and atmospheric Edwardian villas. Wellington was the film’s star, other regions may have other opinions.
The movie was filmed at the time I was born and released in my infancy, but it rings true to me. In the film, the characters go out to drink at a fish and chip shop. By the time I was old enough to drink … er I mean, well, old enough to affect entry to a licensed premise, a decade and a half later, the old gothic town was sporting several Irish pubs and we drank in them rather than the chippie.
When I was in my early 20s, I did a work trial at one of the capital’s venerable Irish pubs Kitty O’Shea’s. Now I say venerable, but the pub only dated from 1997. The building’s Irish connections went right back to its original owner Francis Louden who was born in the Emerald Isle and had the building built to house a patisserie in 1906.
At the time of my work trial Kittys was the smaller player to Molly Malones further down Courtenay Pace. Working bar at Kitty’s was a formidable task. From late afternoon til early evening the bar was ringed by little old Irish men who were extremely specific about how they wanted their Guinness poured and vocal about when it wasn’t up to the standard.
The smell of pipe tobacco smoke wafted through the bar and late afternoon sun streamed in through the doorway. It seemed to me to be straight out of the old world. My love of pubs was growing. I have been fortunate enough to visit many wonderful Irish pubs since. I was made for the other side of the bar.
Guinness is a complicated enigma that is in ascendancy. It is the only remaining global beer superpower that is not pale, not a lager, and which relies on the theatrics of its serving almost as much as its own substance. The others, it must be said, rely on the theatrics of their advertising campaigns.
Ten years ago I would have predicted that Guinness volume would be in decline with the dark beer category becoming increasingly full of small brewer’s offerings and the general shift in tastes to paler and paler beers. Shows what I know, for one financial quarter last year, Guinness was the biggest-selling beer in the United Kingdom, here in New Zealand Guinness increased its volume from a million litres a year in 2021 to 1.5 million litres in 2023.
Now in the craft beer world it’s easy to sneer at Guinness as being all cream and no substance. Even an old grumpy brewer with old-man tastes like me wouldn’t list the draught version high on my desert island pint sheet. However, there is something remarkable about a black beer knocking off a mainstream golden lager for the top spot. A recent BBC episode of The Food Programme about the rising interest in dark beers featured Oisin Rogers — barman at The Devonshire pub in Soho London. He described Guinness warmly as being soothing and almost bland.
While craft stouts and porters often are redolent with flavours of chocolate and espresso, and whatever other confectionary the brewer devises a way of injecting, Guinness combines a bready hint of sweetness, a thick nitrogenated creaminess and a burnt toast bitter finish. Compared to Carling which it briefly beat out for the top spot in the UK or Export Gold or Steinlager Pure, it is a complex pint.
The era of Wellington’s Irish pubs is waning. Molly Malones, the grand Irish pub that used to host the Prime Minister for Saint Patrick’s Day breakfasts, sits empty, its earthquake-prone status another challenge the capital faces going forward. Kitty’s has moved on to become a revolving cast of ‘Courtney Place’ style bars and sits empty at the time of writing. The expansive JJ Murphys in Cuba Mall fights on.
The world moves on and so must we all, but it seems we will still be doing it with a pint, or if the pubs all close, a can, of Guinness.