Total pages in book: 111
Estimated words: 105161 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 105161 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 526(@200wpm)___ 421(@250wpm)___ 351(@300wpm)
“I don’t know what that is,” I admitted. “But any lager is fine.”
There was a beat of silence before he and Charlie plus four or five men working in the warehouse behind us began laughing. My face went hot, and I realized just how ridiculous of an idea this invention had been.
Devlin moved to another single tower. “Try this one then,” he said through his laughter. “It’s Harp. Just a suggestion, but you might want to learn the difference between a stout faucet and a regular one, aye?”
I looked closer and noticed the faucets. “Oh. Right. I knew that. I just hadn’t looked closely,” I mumbled. And that was true. But it was, admittedly, one of the very few things I knew. The truth was, I knew jack shit about beer. I’d learned just enough to try and impress my girlfriend’s father at the time. It wasn’t my job to know beer, though. I was a master of finance integration, forensic accounting, and market share assessment, not to mention financial risk reduction, human capital optimization, and negotiation strategy.
I stepped forward with the small metal ligature and began installing it, babbling the entire time about what I was doing when, in reality, I could have simply said, “Twist it on like this.”
Once the tool was on the tap nozzle, I found a stack of pint glasses under the bar and poured one with the lowest amount of foam, explaining that adjusting the tool with a twist to the right lowered the amount of air and twisting it to the left, let all the air through.
Devlin watched me pull several pints with increasing amounts of foam before nodding and looking at me seriously. “You know how to pull a pint, don’t you?”
I shrugged. “Lager anyway. Not as great at the stouts yet.”
“Come here and let me show you a thing or two, Hudson,” he said in a kind voice. I stepped down to a different tap and watched him pour a perfect pint of Guinness from a tap without my ring on it, all the while explaining what he was doing and why it mattered. “Now you try,” he said, handing me a fresh glass.
When I began the first part of the two-part pour, he took a big swig of his pint, smacking his lips together afterward in satisfaction. I sat my glass on the bar as if I had a customer present and waited for the bubbles to do their thing before picking it back up for the rest of the pour.
“This is where I generally screw up,” I admitted, trying to get the perfect dome without overflowing. This time, the beer gods were with me, and I ended up with a good pour.
“Ah, perfection. Just took being in Ireland to get it right,” he boomed with a hearty slap to my back followed by a chuckle.
I grinned at him. “Maybe you’re right. A little luck of the Irish?”
After following his lead and taking a sip, I noticed Charlie out of the corner of my eye. He was studying the row of Harp pints I’d left farther down the bar. His forehead was creased with concern as he seemed to be assessing the different amounts of head on each pint.
Once he seemed satisfied, he removed my head control device and poured a pint. His eyes were on the first pint I’d poured rather than the one he was currently pulling. Without even seeming to try hard, he duplicated my pour by hand.
Then he did it again. This time the pour matched my second one.
And again, the third.
And again.
Until he had a nearly identical row of pints lined up next to mine—all done by hand without the benefit of my special device.
He was showing me up, and I was mortified, despite having predicted this type of challenge if I’d ever decided to actually pitch the idea to pub owners.
Was his intention to humiliate me in front of his boss? And why did it sting more coming from him than it would have coming from Devlin himself?
I opened my mouth to make the argument I’d already thought through a million times, but he beat me to it. His voice was the kind of quiet, steady voice that hushed a room just so people could listen in.
“The Irish take their pint pulling very seriously, Hudson,” he began. The sound of my name in his soft lilt made something strange happen in my gut. Maybe it was the Irish accent and the fact I wasn’t used to it.
I tried to cut in, to tell him that times were changing and not all bartenders were properly trained or experienced in pulling pints anymore, especially in the States, but he continued before I could get a word in.
“The problem is time,” he said. “Pulling the perfect pint takes time and attention, which is all well and good when it’s halfway through a lazy Sunday and you’re only serving auld Johnny who’s been holding down his same stool for fifty-odd years. But when you’re serving loads of university students or stacks of customers at a festival or game, there’s no time for the perfect pour, is there? And chances are, you haven’t hired the type of bartender who knows how to pull a pint the right way because he hasn’t been tagging along with his dad for twenty years to every public house in Ireland watching how it’s done.”