In the 1960s, the focus of the company shifted away from brewing the "perfect pint" and more towards getting that pint into every single home in the world. The export side of the company expanded into more countries, and more Guinness breweries were set up around the world, in addition to licensing agreements with regional breweries. In the 1970s, the focus drifted even further away from beer as the company began acting like any other global corporation. Guinness bought and sold non-beverage oriented interests, merged and diversified, and in general focused on steadily increasing profits in whatever way the corporate leadership determined would be best at the time. Sometimes it worked, and sometimes it didn't.

Yenne has written an engaging book that is accessible even to the pedestrian beer drinker. His research is thorough, and the bibliography at the end of the book has a few titles that caught my eye as potential future reads. Although the book pulls back the curtain on the company, it still managed to convince this reader that there must be something truly special about Guinness beer, even though my own experiences have proven otherwise.

What surprises me is that by the end of the book, rather than feeling disillusioned and cynical about the company as I do now, Yenne seems to be even more a Guinness fanboy than he was before. Determined to see if my newfound knowledge of the beer's history and Yenne's enthusiasm would influence my opinion of it, I went down to the local pub with a friend. As I sat there, sipping my pint of Guinness that tasted no different than any other Guinness I'd tasted before, I decided that perhaps I needed to try a pint in Ireland someday before completely giving up. It could be that they're watering it down for the American market.