21 Guinness FactsLooking for the perfect pour? How long should it take? Do good things happen tothose who wait?The next time you and your friends are sitting around a pub having a few pints of your favorite Guinness, impress them with these facts:1. 2009 is the 250th Anniversary of Guinness. What better way to celebrate than byputting on your favorite Guinness gear and heading out to the pub for a few pints!2. St James Gate was not the original site for the brewery. Arthur Guinness beganbrewing beer in Leixlip, a town in County Kildare.3. In 1759 he moved to an empty St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin, Ireland. Abigger brewery in a bigger city for bigger production of a great product!4. The St. James's Gate Brewery was leased for 9000 years at an annual fee of £45,or $65 USD! This lease INCLUDED fresh water rights. Imagine paying only $65 forrent for a year on anything, let alone a large brewery!! The fresh water rights causedproblems with the Dublin Corporation, who wanted to charge a levy. This createdquite a stir, and production was halted for a brief time while labourers blocked thewater supply to the brewery. In the end, lucky for us, Guinness kept their fresh waterrights as outlined in his lease.5. Ten years later, in 1769, Guinness exported six and one half barrels of beer toEngland, their first exportation. This brought awareness of the product to a wholenew market. As people emigrated to the new world, they would of course take theirfavorite brew with them.6. By 2001, almost 2 billion pints a year were sold world wide.7. Over the years, much slang has come about when ordering a pint of Guinness andhere a few ways you can order one for yourself!- "Arthur G"- "Pint of black stuff"- "Arthur Scargill"- "Pint of plain"8. Did you know that contrary to popular beliefs, Guinness does not contain oatmeal!It actually contains roasted malted barley, hops, yeast, and water. Also, the beer isnot black, but actually a dark ruby red.