Allll righty then: come-all-ye stout-hearted lasses & yez frothy-headed lads, wot do we think about THIS one? From The Irish Times, February 24 2002.

Stout defenders call time on a proposal for the instant pint
By Frank McNally

Attempts by Guinness to pull a fast one on its customers have been greeted with a mixture of scepticism and hostility from stout defenders.

After 243 years of promoting patience, the pace of life is catching up with the famous brewery, which has revealed that, having once advertised its pints with "30 seconds of darkness" it is now testing a technology for pouring them in half that time.

The quick pint experiment is a response to shrinking consumption, which yesterday saw Guinness Diageo announce a 4 per cent drop in Irish sales.

Company chief executive Mr Paul Walsh has admitted that the traditional two-minute pouring time is "not relevant to our consumers today".

And the new technique would all-but eliminate it, with bar staff using an "ultrasonic impulse" to turn a flat pint into stout as we know it, in 15 seconds. But rival brewers Beamish and Crawford led the chorus of criticism. In a statement that stopped just short of demanding a constitutional referendum to protect the pint, the company called the idea "absolutely ludicrous," accused Guinness of a "schizophrenic" approach to promotion, and condemned what it called the "lagerisation" of stout. "Their great brewers of the past would turn in their graves," the statement added.Dublin publicans too were sceptical. At The Clock in Thomas Street, alarm bells were ringing at the prospect of the instant pint.

Proprietor Brendan Dunne said he himself might give up Guinness - brewed yards away at St James's Gate - if the black day came to pass. "But I'd be a bit of a traditionalist".

Meanwhile, in Mulligans of Poolbeg Street, where staff were hard pressed to meet the Friday evening demand, one barman was equally appalled. "God, no. I wouldn't agree with that. It's perfect as it is." A Guinness spokesman said the speed pint had been "tested in different places" but there were no plans yet to introduce it. "It's still only a concept." Fundamentalist stout drinkers will hope it goes the way of another concept, Guinness Light. Only quicker.