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In Search of The Best Guinness in Cambridge Part 1: The Quest Begins

 



I’m quite partial to a Guinness there’s something about it, which it makes it just the job when you fancy one. I also believe that there is a big variation in quality of Guinness you get served. For this challenge I’m aiming to visit every venue in Cambridge which serves Guinness on draught. I will rate the Guinness on a scale from 0-5, in 0.25 increments, the same as Untappd. I really have no idea how long this will take, there’s a lot of pubs to visit! At this point I haven’t even worked out how many pubs actually serve Guinness in Cambridge, though I suspect it’s most. I may also include places that aren’t pubs, if I can get in. I may group pubs together by location in future parts, but part 1 is a random start!


The best Guinness I’ve ever had: The benchmark:


It was the 25th of November last year, England were playing the USA at the World Cup and my friends and I had just arrived in Dublin. We were surprised to find that what we agreed was the best Guinness in Dublin could be found in the first pub we went to, Mulligan’s. This pub was incredible and featured an island style bar, where one person on each side was pouring Guinness and leaving it to settle. The Guinness here was a 5/5. I’m not expecting anywhere to live up to this rating but let’s see!


The Champion of The Thames


I’ve written a whole blog post on this pub, which can be found here: Champ blog post

The Champ was a strong start to this challenge. It was a really well served and tasty pint of Guinness, I could easily had another! I’m going to score it 4.5 out of 5. A very strong start indeed. 



The White Swan

A much touted server of Cambridge’s best Guinness is this Mill Road staple. I can’t recall ever having a Guinness here, prior to my recent visit. In fact, I hadn’t visited the pub at all since September 2018. Clearly I was overdue a visit. Guinness obtained, my friend and I took our seats in the impressive pub garden. 


I can see why The Swan’s Guinness is so highly praised, it was excellent. Easily another 4.5 rating to tie The Champ and The Swan. Maybe I’ll need to do a Guinness-off in the event these two remain top of the pops at the end of this! 


Earl Of Beaconsfield 


The Beaky is criminally underrated pub in Cambridge. Expect to see a blog post just on The Beaky at some point. It is usually my last stop on a night out. The Guinness here is very good! A strong 4 out of 5 rating. 


The Dobblers 

It was years since I last went to The Dobblers, so I was overdue a visit! The Guinness wasn’t great, it lacked in taste. 2 out of 5. 


Cambridge Working Man’s Club

You never know when you’re going to get the chance to review Guinness in an unexpected place! I was playing Skittles for The Kingston Arms away at this club and as luck would have it, Guinness was available! Except, this is the worst Guinness I have ever had. It was acidic and frankly disgusting. I would have taken it back but the other beer on offer wasn’t much of an improvement. 0.25 out of 5. 


The Skittles result wasn’t great either, we lost 7-2. 


Thanks for reading! Stay tuned for part 2! 


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