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will suffice? Is that right? Y’ll just be lookin’ exclusively f’yer English piss-water, it seems. Puttin’ our poor lads at the breweries here out o’ the business while y’ be asking fer yer own imported rubbish instead…”
    â€œLook…listen…if you don’t have any, it doesn’t—”
    â€œDon’t have any?! As if I’d let anythin’ with a name like Sam Smith’s or Newcastle or Worthington get into my cellar while my lovely barrels o’ the black stuff rest there waitin’ t’be appreciated by them’s as knows their beer an’ their stout…”
    I began to suspect that I was becoming the butt of some stupid insider joke or the recipient of a silly little hazing ritual for blow-ins with a hankering for the great British ales. Or maybe it was my accent. Very obviously British. Sort of middle–working class with overtones of grammar school. But definitely not that upper-crust tone, all clipped, authoritative, and dictatorial—the one that conjurers up days of Empire, Rule Britannia, Churchillian bombast, and Prince Charles’s speeches. “You’re not being serious…,” I suggested with a kind of “that’s enough now—just pour me a pint” nonchalance.
    A nonchalance that was not reciprocated. “So, what’s it t’be then?” The barman had an unpleasant habit of stroking the under-side of his chin with his finger, sliding it about like a short but deadly knife.
    â€œWell, I guess if there’s no Newcastle in the house…I suppose a Murphy’s stout will have to do.”
    â€œWe don’t sell Murphy’s.”
    â€œBeamish then?”
    â€œWe don’t sell Beamish.”
    â€œSmithwick’s Bitter?”
    â€œOut.”
    â€œHarp Lager?”
    â€œOut.”
    â€œLook—why don’t I just try the place across the road…”
    â€œOne more guess. Y’get one more,” said the barman with a menacing leer that suggested no contradiction.
    â€œOkay—right. Fine. I’ll take a pint of your Guinness, then.”
    Utter transformation!
    â€œWell! Yessir! O’course, sir!” He smiled his best “at your service” customer smile. “A pint o’ Guinness it is, then, and a fine choice, sir, if I and my colleagues here might say so. It’ll just take a couple o’ minutes. T’get the top right. ’S’not Guinness without its proper head, y’understand.”
    â€œYes, I know. I’m quite familiar with Guinness by now.”
    â€œWell—are ya, now? I wouldna known that from what it was y’ were askin’ for a minute or two ago…maybe y’were just havin’ a little confusion of the mind…”
    And that’s when I should have left. But he was already pulling the pint and the black stuff was pouring in with its surges of infinitesimally tiny brown bubbles and that creamy head building. And it looked as good as all the ads you see on television, particularly the one shot in sepia colors with a young guy mesmerized by the gradually rising nectar of his stout and a bead of anticipatory sweat easing slowly down his forehead to the tip of his nose as the glass gradually fills…

    Barman in Pub
    Finally the pouring ritual was over, and as I reached to pick up the glass, I sensed a concerted gathering of onlookers around me at the bar. They seemed to be watching me and my drink very expectantly. Well, I thought—I guess I’ll show this crowd I can drink a pint of Guinness just as well as the next man. This is no wimpy blow-in here. So I picked up the glass and slowly downed the whole pint without a break for breath or anything else for that matter. Then, when I’d finished, I placed the empty, froth-laced glass back on the counter, wiped my mustache and lips with my left hand, and smiled. “Not bad…” I mumbled while half