Beer expert blind tastes Guinness alternatives 

Great video, I was looking forward to this blind taste. Can we appreciate that an industrial mammoth like Guinness can pull off an alcohol free version that’s not the worst one in the test? They do know their stuff.

Pleased that London Black rated so highly. Absolutely brilliant beer, love the coffee notes and it's very sessionable!

Good to see London Black getting some love. I've had many pints straight from the tap room, it's magical.

I've spent forty years believing that Beamish (& Crawford as it was) was miles better than Murphys and Guinness. Glad to see that it is still up there and wish I had some.

Had some Beamish in Cork city and it was the best drink I've had in years. Incredible it's not bigger in Ireland. Super stout.

Beamish on tap was a great beer in the 90's, shame it disappeared

Beamish in Cork City, Murphys in West Cork. Of the lot, a pint of Murphys in West Cork is king.

That Camden stout is so weak and thin it's a travesty. The Forged is surprisingly ok. Need to find somewhere in the UK to get Beamish.

Hey. Great review. Live in NI. My go to stouts have always been Guinness and Murphy’s. Had Beamish once 30 yrs ago and was put off. But after seeing this I lifted 4 cans from a local independent offy as the only place I’ve seen it up here and now I’m a convert. So, for me, I’m order, it’s Beamish, Murphy’s then Guinness. Going to have to spend more time in Cork! How about a video on Irish craft both north and south? Cheers.

When I visited the UK, Stewart’s Nitro 80 was my favorite. Nitrogen definitely adds something extra.

I appreciate that it's a Porter but London Black is by far the best !!!!!

First time I’ve ‘drank along’ with a blind test. Was just the A&H London Black, but fun all the same. Great to see in cans. I think it could also do with being a bit more ‘nitro smooth’.

Recent stouts from both Camden and Brewdog now proliferate UK supermarket shelves. Glad to see your verdict in accordance with my 'waste of taste' experience. Draught 'Forge' is a decent, taste experience and I will try it in a can, when found. Always a tricky brew to get right. My favourite [not on your list] is Three Tuns Stout from Bishops Castle.

Beamish all the way for me , pity is hard to find in the uk now

I find O’Hara’s to be a cut above both Guinness and Murphy’s. I’ve yet to try Beamish. Not sure it’s available in the US but I’ll keep an eye out for it.

Honestly for me it's dry/irish stout over lager as a session beer; I love those darker, roastier flavours, the bitterness you get from roasted barley rather than the bitterness from alpha acids. There is a lot of dogshit out there though lmao, shame you couldn't get Murphy's! Great video as usual

Pierce the top of the Beamish with a bradawl or similar to avoid setting off the widget and pour it through the nitrosurge. Thats what i do. Minimal effort and worth it

Well, I just learned something new today - Nitro is actually short for Nitrogen with different gaseous characteristics for the texture! Thank you.

With the NA rise in populartiy I had high hopes for the Guinness 0.0. I've had one before and liked it but always intresting to see what you get from a blind tasting. And good on you, you knew it was low alcohol!

Did you try the beer shop in Hitchin?

Love the anspach & hobday stout, made its way to France on tap and in cans. Love it

Used to drink a pint of Beamish in the Albion just outside Birmingham City Centre 33 years ago. They would pour it, let it sit, and then "shave" it with a knife. Delicious. So my question is - where can I get it in the UK?

You may want to try Nightjar stout by the Wye Valley Brewery at some point. Don't think it's available in can or bottle - draft only. It's delicious and a major contender, so definitely worth a trip to English/Welsh border.

didnt they tear down the beamish brewery in cork city center? where do they brew it now?

Not had Beamish for ages, it used to be my preference to Guiness in my younger boozing days, they also used to make a cracking red ale as well

I am Typ2 Diabetic, Guinness is the only stout I have that does not spike my levels, but to me, it's not the best stout but the one I drink 99% of the time. Tonight I will be starting on Guinness and then going on to Titanic Stout, the TS will rocket my blood sugar but tastes better than the Guinness.

belive me you........i am a homebrewer going pro.....but i just love your vids to death guys............u bring so much wonderful vids, we beer geeks can't get enof.............just awesomeness

I live in the UK and am gutted we cant get Murphys anymore. Tesco and B&M were the last outlets. Hope that a surge in the popularity of stouts will bring my favourite beer back.

O’ Hara’s single dry stout is my favourite stout. Unlike the Irish big three stouts it has a far more natural flavour. John McKenna of the Irish times described it as being how stout used to be. In the off trade I prefer it bottled as opposed to the can.

Great great vid I love beamish it’s beautiful. Nice work again in-depth and educational cheers 👍🍻

I get cask stout in litre bottles from Bushys Brewery, IOM. Couple of squirts with a syringe and u have pint of smooth creamy stout with flavour (cask) like in the pub. Works out £1.8] a pint

I wouldn't go to Luton for any reason. Shows your passion.

Shame you couldn't get any Murphy's, that's a really good pint. Haven't seen Beamish since the 90's, loved that stuff.

Pity no Murphy's. A close second but for me its Beamish all the way. " Mother's milk" 😉

missed oot on Belhaven Black!

It was a few years ago I did my chemistry degree. Didn't know CO2 had become super soluble in water over that time. Maybe that's why we've got all this ocean acidification.

Right, I shall be down to Cork for a big case of Beamish then.

I love Beamish!! For me, it's the best!!! Last summer, I discover Island's Edge stout, it's a really good one too. Then, I'll put Murphys and Guinness.

Cloudwater - Piccadilly Porter is the one 😍

While on a trip in Belfast I really enjoyed „Belfast Black“ by Whitewater-Brewery. I felt like this was the Northern Irish alternative to Guinness :p

HON BEAMISH!!!!!!

Do Guiness still do a bitter? It came in a green can. I haven't been able to find it anywhere.

3:16 "again" well, now I am going to need a link to that video^^

You have made every Cork man's day with this review. One thing i think every stout lover in Ireland can agree on regardless of where they fall on the Guinness vs. Beamish (or even Murphys) debate: it was a gift to watch Island's Edge implode something like a mere two years after launch. Heineken Ireland pushed that * aggressively * for a long while. I hadn't seen an advertisement campaign as relentless since when white claw tried to establish here. "It's better less bitter" was the tagline... but was it really? Any stout lover i spoke to found it way too sweet. Clearly Heineken Ireland thought it could challenge Guinness's stronghold on taps around the country by presuming more people would drink stout if it wasn't bitter. And after all, palates have skewed sweeter in recent years. But beyond the coffee notes, i just don't get this apparent unbearable bitterness that people speak of. Part of what makes the Irish dry stouts what they are is the sweet side to the malts. Anyway, they figured they should make their own alternative and failed spectacularly, in part cos they just didn't understand what makes the greats special. Doesn't matter how many parasols on how many terraces around town you put up, tourists are still going to be trying the Guinness for a reason beyond it just being available everywhere.

Video started, I fast forwarded to near the end (for the results) and the bloke had a spread sheet.

o haras is a very very underrated stout their leann foill vanilla stout is fantastic.

Beamish is quality. Probably the only good thing about Cork. As a bonus, it's one of the cheaper pints in Ireland, which is a major positive given the extortionate prices for booze here.

I love stouts, but I've never liked Guinness. I know it has a reverence and people love it, and they all go on about how much better it is in Ireland. I guess that means it doesn't travel well, and if a beer doesn't travel well, then to me, that's a bad product.

Wered you get Beamish? Been desperate to give it a bash

I think people only like nitro stouts because of the creamy looking head which reminds you of whipped cream on coffee. I have my porters on cask which has a similar creamy looking foam for less price also a better flavour, in fact the nitro beer was designed to resemble cask beer.

It is a very forgiving style to brew at home, be good if you had brewed one yourself and put this into mix. (A nitro set up is relatively inexpensive)

Love the tasting videos !! So glad London black performed well (think if it didn’t )🫣! Lucky enough to have that on draft in two of my locals up north ! Great job 👏

Not especially traditional... but Kirkstall brewery's Tiramisu stout 👌

Is it possible to find Beamish in the UK…? Murphys has all but disappeared, I remember in the 90s you could find all the three Irish stouts on draught with Murphys having big advertising campaign…

Can you please center the thirst quenching poster in the frame, it is aggravating my OCD 😂

I tried brewing a stout once, ONCE, it tasted like an ashtray. I went and got myself a Guinness. Turns out mine wasn’t soo bad😂

Surely you should have got something from Galway Bay as an Irish alternative? March of the Penguins from Williams Bros or Old Engine Oil from Harviestoun would be the ones from Scotland, although those are not really Nitros - not many Nitros in Scotland to be fair.

No Siren Broken Dreams? Jet Black Heart from Brewdog was a decent stout, and they did a nitro version, too.

Nothing beats Guinness Original.

No Murphy's, that sucks. Actually prefer Murphy's over Guinness, I find it has a little more flavor, not as thin and watery as Guinness. Oddly, the Guinness coffee version is better than the OG, IMHO

G'wan Cork! P.s. regular flights there from London and Manchester if you want to try a Beamish on tap :)

I hardly ever drink this type of beer, I know I've ordered Guinness before but I could not tell you the last time. I did however go to a small metal festival 2-3 years back with a pretty weird selection (as in two beers) at the bar. Some bland and boring macro lager I can't even remember and the Iron Maiden Trooper Fear of The Dark Stout. So over that weekend I probably drank 80% of the stouts I've consumed in total in my life... Cant tell if it was any good though, tasted like a low abv stout

One you didn't have but should be available to you is Sullivan's Black Marble Stout. Along with O'Hara's and Bemish, a pretty good Guinness substitute. Murphys's is totally meh.

Since when did they start doing London Black in can? And BrewDog killed one of their best beers so that they could make a bog standard Guinness knock-off. RIP Jet Black Heart.

So clearly a fan of BA Impy Stouts (I mean who isn't) so... next blind taste test? 😉 Seriously though, great video and some real curveballs in there, love a Nitro Stout, and agree that a lot of the more supermarkety ones feel a bit safe and feel like they can't stray too far out of the Guiness shadow, so might need to track down some Beamish and see how London Black is in can!

Does anyone know...Who pays for the nitrogen when this is served in a pub - the brewery or the pub?

Where's Murphy's?

I love Beamish!

Bitterness is absolutely muted with nitro.

Can't beat a creamy Beamy

Maybe you’re still recovering from the book writing, but I live for the dodgy typing

The original Guinness is waaaay better than the draught nitro stuff

I hate bitterness in a porter or a stout, I think the deluge of ipa's has ruined hoppy notes for me , malt should be celebrated much more

Wow, I would have expected Lervig to perform better.

Should have done Guinness 0 first, tasting alcohol free always goes badly if you’ve had alcoholic first

Brew York state of mind is my favourite series of beers!

Was it ever true that Beamish and Murphy were religious ? One was the Catholic stout and one was the Protestant version. Urban myth maybe ? Regardless, I named a dog Porter once as he was dark, strong and smooth…

Beamish is king

Guinness seems thin these days. Maybe I'm just expecting too much from it.

Guinness is way overrated........very little flavour and unchallenging. As a Cork man, Murphys and Beamish are superior in flavour and mouth feel. I'm a Murphys fan but really enjoy a Creamy Beamy as well. I feel that, if the advertising, marketing and promoting for Murphys and Beamish were ramped up their popularity would see significant growth. Downside to Murphys and Beamish is they are both under the Heineken umbrella now but, that aside, they deserve more love and recognition.

How can you give the 3rd beer 5 and 5 when it had no flavour? Surely thats a 0 and 0.

Beer expert might be a slight overstatement. Just joking!❤ Love you Johnny. PS... Beer does have terroir.

Drink 12 pints on VIDEO👍🙏🍺😵‍💫

I'll give Guinness 0% this: it's one of the few actually drinkable non-alcoholic beers I've ever had.

I'm reasonably confident that if you took 100 adults at random and had them score all these beers, that the Left Hand beer would end up scoring highest. I'm not sure what that means exactly, but its always a nice beer to have one.

Guinness for me is the Bud of lager land and Jack of Whisky. Big reputations, great advertising, great labels, but all bland , no flavour , expensive and quite honestly rubbish to be frank

Your face is going to get stuck in that thumbnail expression one of these days.

Sorry but Guinness has zero flavour; Forged has a lot more. In Asda, I'm limited to those two and Brewdog. Think I'll give Brewdog a miss.

This seems fixed for Guinness to look good! Don't waste your time listening to this

Please sort out your graphics. It's extremely difficult to tell which beer you are tasting.

bad video, trying to judge mainstream stout like a more niche craft beer & obvious bias.

Beamish dumps on Guinness. Marketing, sadly, convinces most drinkers otherwise.

Blind tasting.... seemed to me that he knew exactly which one was Guinness.

So the 2 best 'Guinness alternatives' are ....a porter!?! and a BA Stout? Which are not Guinness alternatives are they? So whats the point of comparing them ? makes zero sense to me.. Dishonest title in my opinion. An honest title might of been ' Beer expert blind tastes Nitro stouts , a BA stout , and a nitro porter'

Guinness is an absolutely appalling stout.

As someone from Cork where Beamish is brewed, it has an almost cult status here. I was honestly nervous that you wouldn't like it but delighted it went down well. Beamish is best!

It was a few years ago I did my chemistry degree. Didn't know CO2 had become super soluble in water over that time. Maybe that's why we've got all this ocean acidification.

A proud day for all of us from the land of Beamish! Been my pint of choice for years!

Good to see Beamish doing well. The owner Heineken spent a fortune on Island's Edge to compete with Guinness and failed miserably. Seems they should look after Beamish and Murphys instead. Thought Forged might have done better. McGregor bought the Porterhouse brewery (without the brands) to make Forged. Porterhouse have made great stouts.

I spent many many hours in the early to mid 90s drinking Beamish Stout (and Beamish Red) on tap