Two things happened last week that rarely happen anymore:

1) I was out past 9pm

2) I had a beer

It was the company party for the place my wife works and as I told you last week it hasn’t happened in a while.

I rarely ever have an alcoholic beverage anymore but I decided to have a Guinness with my dinner so before we sat down I ordered one.

It had been a while since I had had one and if you’ve ever ordered a Guinness you know there’s a very specific way that they pour it and make it look.

So the guy did his thing and then there was an extra step - he put it in this machine to the side that started whirring or doing something.

I almost asked him what it was because I was curious - I thought it was something that measured the specifications of the beer because bartenders are usually so exact with a Guinness pour that maybe it was now a science? And there were tools for it?

It had been that long since I did anything like this - it would not be out of the realm of possibility that there have been significant technological advancements that improved a Guinness pour.

Then he took the beer out of the machine and I was glad I didn’t ask him what the machine was measuring.

(I do think in retrospect it would have been funny to see what his response would be if I did ask what the machine was doing. He might have looked at me like I’ve been living under a rock. I’m willing to bet this is pretty common fare at bars these days. Fancy bars, at least.)

It was just burning (? - I am actually not sure how the image works) the image of a reindeer into the foam on the beer.

Thank goodness Kathy was there because she said, “Oh you should take a picture of that,” as I grabbed the beer and almost immediately started drinking it.

And so I did.

And then I realized I should write about it.

And so I did.

The image stayed on there a surprisingly long time as the foam made its way down the glass - it got a little distorted but it was a neat thing to see.

Maybe next time I do this - which maybe won’t be for another ten years - I’ll ask a little more about the process…now that I know what the end result is.