The Stout

In Cardiff, there is a smoke tower with BRAINS printed on it. We decided it must be a zombie factory. Then we noticed that many local establishments had signs for BRAINS in their windows. Perhaps they served the zombies.

Ordering Brains Black at a pub gives you a dark, chocolaty stout beer. (Perhaps it is an essence of . . . something.) So it turns out that Brains is the local, Welsh Stout.

In Dublin there is Guinness, of course. In Cork, that's called Dublin swill, or so we're told, and people drink Beamish or Murphy's. In Dublin, asking for a Beamish gets you a Guinness. But being to Cork first, my tastes are rather set on the former. I have picked sides in the rivalry between the two cities, so there.