Guinness and Lucozade

A while ago we started to discuss one of the ‘unmentionable’ aspects of drinking beer – the custom of adding something to alter the taste. Clearly this practice is frowned upon by most beery aficionados – but for certain people or situations it’s increasingly common. The BeerCast concentrates primarily on real ale, American craft beer and the like – but as we also talk about lagers (see our regular Lagerboy feature) we’re not outside the boundaries of experimentation. So, when my father told me of a very peculiar habit in a small part of Yorkshire we had to investigate.

It may be an apocryphal story – or an urban myth – but apparently the Asian taxi drivers of Huddersfield have developed a taste for Guinness and Lucozade. I’m not really sure why, and a search for clues found absolutely nothing to shed light on the claims. Guinness shandy (i.e. with lemonade added) was rumoured to have been invented by the New Zealand rugby team during a tour of the UK, putting a slightly different twist on the usual bitter shandy. That fact came direct from the Guinness website, so it may have some substance to it – even if it sounds unlikely that Jonah Lomu and friends would drink anything diluted.

Of course, there’s only one way to discover what the combination tastes like, and that’s to try it. The wishy-washy nature of the Huddersfield rumour doesn’t help when it comes to purchasing the ingredients – is it canned Guinness or bottled? Original or widgeted? And what flavour of Lucozade to pick? I ended up with the most basic, and therefore readily available varieties – canned stout and original Glucose Lucozade. The next hurdle was the ratios – I started off with about 2/3 Guinness to 1/3 sugary sports drink, before frantically adding more stout to take the taste away.

It really is awful – the sweetness of the Lucozade totally overpowers the stout, which is something I had not expected at all. Looking at the pint glass, the resulting blend is slightly less opaque than unadulterated stout, but not by much. The whole thing tastes like a swizzle stick from a tuck shop Sherbet Dab. Adding a second slug of Guinness doesn’t alter the taste that much – sweet glucose is still the dominant flavour, there’s just a slightly longer dark taste fighting a losing battle. It’s really not nice at all – although if you don’t like the acrid edge to Guinness it might be a good entry level alternative. Good for the taxi drivers of Huddersfield that they’ve found something unique to drink, but they can keep it.