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Short Stuff: The Guinness Widget · Stuff You Should Know

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Hey, and welcome to short Stuff. I'm Josh and there's
• 0:06
  Speaker 1: Chuck and we're talking short stuff today. We're talking widgets
• 0:10
  Speaker 1: on short stuff. I should say widgets that were first
• 0:13
  Speaker 1: introduced as a concept from a play, right, Chuck.
• 0:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean there was the word. First of all,
• 0:19
  Speaker 2: we need to think our old buddy Brian Didsbury. Oh right,
• 0:24
  Speaker 2: the boom operator on the stuff. You should know a
• 0:26
  Speaker 2: TV show so great, who comes to our live shows?
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: Still a friend. He texted me all the time trying
• 0:30
  Speaker 2: to get me to play Red Dead Redemption with him online.
• 0:33
  Speaker 1: He texted me Simpson's quotes.
• 0:35
  Speaker 2: Does he really? Oh? Did he text you about this too?
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: No?
• 0:39
  Speaker 2: Okay, Yeah, he texted me a couple of days ago
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: and it's like, hey man, how about one on the
• 0:43
  Speaker 2: Guinness widget. I was like, done, buddy, it's a good idea,
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: for sure it is, and said thanks to Guinness dot com.
• 0:50
  Speaker 2: How stuff works, conservable, conversible, economist, petroleum service company? Where
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: else YouTube?
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, that's pretty much it.
• 1:03
  Speaker 2: Okay, anyway, get widgets. Everybody thinks it's basically a spinoff
• 1:09
  Speaker 2: of the word gadget, which is probably true. We don't
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: know the true etymology, but I believe It was in
• 1:15
  Speaker 2: a play in nineteen twenty four where they specifically in
• 1:19
  Speaker 2: the play talked about like we're in the widget business,
• 1:21
  Speaker 2: and that maybe like the first time that anyone had
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: ever used it like that. But then Guinness came along
• 1:27
  Speaker 2: and said, well, you know what everyone talks about, widgets
• 1:30
  Speaker 2: is just a thing you make, a nameless thing you
• 1:32
  Speaker 2: make at any company. We're going to make a real thing,
• 1:34
  Speaker 2: and we're really going to call it a widget and
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: get it patented as such.
• 1:38
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and they did. It's this thing that makes canned
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: guinness much more like Guinness from the tap, which is
• 1:47
  Speaker 1: actually much more like Guinness from a cask, because Guinness
• 1:51
  Speaker 1: is its own kind of thing. As a matter of fact,
• 1:53
  Speaker 1: I say we dig into how Guinness' is Guinness.
• 1:57
  Speaker 2: That's right. I think we should prep people that this simple, simple,
• 2:03
  Speaker 2: little short stuff was a cause of a lot of
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: emails and consternation between us today.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: Right, is it simple?
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: I think? So?
• 2:11
  Speaker 1: All right, Well, I think you should take the lead.
• 2:13
  Speaker 2: In basically a pong ball.
• 2:15
  Speaker 1: Oh, yes, the widget is simple, right, so let's talk
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: about what we're talking about. If you open a can
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: of Guinness and just the can, it's not in the bottle.
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: There's a little plastic sphere with a hole in the
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: bottom that you will hear rattling around the can if
• 2:30
  Speaker 1: you cut the can open very gently, set one aside,
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: and then be very careful holding the other one up
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: because it's a slice can. They're very dangerous. And look
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: inside you'll see this little plastic sphere that is the
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: Guinness widget. And there's no, it's not that big, is
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: it now?
• 2:48
  Speaker 2: That looks a little smaller.
• 2:50
  Speaker 1: But could you though, does it have bounce to it?
• 2:52
  Speaker 2: M I doubt it because it's not it's not full
• 2:56
  Speaker 2: of air, okay, and it's heavier. I was just making it.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: Okay, Well, I didn't know. I could see that being
• 3:02
  Speaker 1: like a thing that the Internet figured out.
• 3:04
  Speaker 2: I bet they've done that in Ireland. And by the way,
• 3:06
  Speaker 2: Guinness calls these officially within the Guinness Company, they call
• 3:09
  Speaker 2: it smooth.
• 3:10
  Speaker 1: The fire okay, So everybody else calls it a widget then, yeah, okay,
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: So they put this in there and only God themself
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: knows how they work.
• 3:25
  Speaker 2: Well, let's talk a little bit about a guy named
• 3:28
  Speaker 2: Michael Ash. In nineteen fifty one, Michael Ash joined the
• 3:32
  Speaker 2: Guinness Company. He was a mathematician he's a master brewer.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: He was a big believer in science, and he was like, hey,
• 3:40
  Speaker 2: there's all these beers that are made with carbon dioxide,
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: and it's that CO two that dissolves in the beer
• 3:47
  Speaker 2: that makes it fizzy when you open it up. When
• 3:50
  Speaker 2: the can is closed, the pressure inside is much higher
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: than the pressure outside. So when you open that thing up,
• 3:55
  Speaker 2: there's a pressure drop and the agitation of pouring it
• 3:59
  Speaker 2: makes that CO two come bubbling out, and that's where
• 4:01
  Speaker 2: you get your foamy head on a beer.
• 4:03
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: He was like, this cask guinness is smooth and creamy
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: and CO two just doesn't do it. If we're going
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: to try and put the stuff in pubs and eventually
• 4:13
  Speaker 2: in cans.
• 4:14
  Speaker 1: No, no, So if you have a cask, the beer
• 4:19
  Speaker 1: that's put into the cask, it ages in the cask,
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: like when you deliver it to a pub, it's still
• 4:25
  Speaker 1: doing its thing aging and once you tap the cask
• 4:29
  Speaker 1: you have three days to drink it. That's how unpasteurized
• 4:31
  Speaker 1: and new it is. But the thing is is when
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: you get the beer out of the cask, you have
• 4:36
  Speaker 1: to actually pump it out, and that creates like a
• 4:39
  Speaker 1: totally different pour and finish than if you're pouring it
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: out of a cake. So, because the world kind of
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: transitioned from casks to kegs around the middle of the
• 4:50
  Speaker 1: twentieth century, Michael Ashen was like, well, then, what can
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: we do to make guinness more cask like or keep
• 4:56
  Speaker 1: its cask like profile and look and taste and everything.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: And he figured out that adding nitrogen is what would
• 5:03
  Speaker 1: do that.
• 5:04
  Speaker 2: That's right, and you know what, I think that's a
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: good little cliffhanger. Okay, so let's take a break and
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: we'll talk about the magic inside the Guinness can and
• 5:13
  Speaker 2: glass right after this. All right, So where we left off,
• 5:46
  Speaker 2: Michael ash had discovered that nitrogen along with it's not
• 5:51
  Speaker 2: it doesn't replace the CEO two. It's a mixture of
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: the carbon dioxide and nitrogen, but nitrogen isn't absorbed into
• 5:59
  Speaker 2: the beer like carbon dioxide is. So it it has
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: the same pressure of just a regular beer, but it
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: has a lot less CO two, and so it's not
• 6:09
  Speaker 2: as physy, which is not what you want out of
• 6:11
  Speaker 2: a Guinness anyway, because that nitrogen is making up a
• 6:14
  Speaker 2: great deal of that pressure inside the can.
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: Yes, and even though it's harder for nitrogen to dissolve
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: inside beer CO two. It's very easy. Nitrogen will some
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: will dissolve and it forms smaller bubbles and more stable
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: bump bubbles. So when you pour this nitrogen infused Guinness beer,
• 6:36
  Speaker 1: the the head will be foamier, much creamier than say
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: like a CO two loggerhead that eventually kind of settles
• 6:44
  Speaker 1: down and looks like urine in a glass after a while,
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: especially if we're talking about cores banquet beer. This is
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: like a foamy head that, because the nitrogen bubbles are
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: more stable, stays around way longer too. So he figured
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: out by adding nitrogen and you can basically replicate the
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: look and the feel and the taste of cask poor
• 7:05
  Speaker 1: Guinness like it used to be.
• 7:07
  Speaker 2: That's right. So the next step was like how do
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I make this happen in a can? It seemed like
• 7:12
  Speaker 2: an impossibility until a guy named John Lunn l u
• 7:17
  Speaker 2: n N, a master distiller, created the widget the patent.
• 7:22
  Speaker 2: I believe Guinness eventually filed for the patent in sixty
• 7:25
  Speaker 2: nine for an improved method of and means of dispensing
• 7:29
  Speaker 2: carbonated liquids from containers. It began as a Project Dynamite,
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: but apparently there was a lot of that was problematic
• 7:38
  Speaker 2: for customs because it said Project Dynamite on all the
• 7:41
  Speaker 2: paperwork and stuff. So yeah, yeah, so they changed it
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: to Project oak Tree.
• 7:48
  Speaker 1: They changed with the Project Dino mi right.
• 7:53
  Speaker 2: They changed it to Project Nuclear Waste. Now Project oak
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: Tree I think was a reference to the original Project
• 7:58
  Speaker 2: Acorn from Guinness. So they wanted to get these cans
• 8:04
  Speaker 2: right that you can get Guinness in a bottle, but
• 8:05
  Speaker 2: it's not the same beer at all. It's completely different beer.
• 8:08
  Speaker 1: So like the you like the canned version better? Huh
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: oh yeah, okay, the pub version. I might not be
• 8:15
  Speaker 1: doing it right then, because I'm like, what is this crap?
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: Like this is I would rather just drink the Guinness
• 8:20
  Speaker 1: out of a bottle any day of the week.
• 8:23
  Speaker 2: I mean, do you like Guinness in a pub?
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: I don't know that I've ever actually had real Guinness
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: in a pub?
• 8:29
  Speaker 2: Oh Josh, Because it''m taking you to England next week.
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: Okay, that'd be awesome, you like really?
• 8:37
  Speaker 2: Yea, that just surprises me.
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: I must not import it correctly because it doesn't make
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: any sense that they would even go to this trouble
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: of putting a widget in it to make worse guinness
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: than it is in the bottle. So I just didn't
• 8:51
  Speaker 1: do it right, that's my guess.
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: Well, maybe you just don't understand the concept of guinness.
• 8:56
  Speaker 2: I mean, guinness is supposed to go down like a
• 8:59
  Speaker 2: milk and not a fizzy carbonated beverage. It's got They
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: call it the surge and settle. It pours in and
• 9:06
  Speaker 2: you just see it gently falling to the bottom and
• 9:08
  Speaker 2: you get this milky foam at the.
• 9:09
  Speaker 1: Top the cascade.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and like that's why I could always drink a
• 9:14
  Speaker 2: lot of guinness because it didn't it didn't fill you
• 9:16
  Speaker 2: up and make you super gassy and burpie.
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: Wow. So I've been doing the opposite because drinking a
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: single bottle of guinness is like eating a whole loaf
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: of bread to me.
• 9:25
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the bottle is completely different.
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: Wow. Okay, So I got to try this other version
• 9:30
  Speaker 1: because what you're talking about is basically the opposite of
• 9:32
  Speaker 1: the guinness I'm familiar with.
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: Oh wow, that is that.
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: That's funny, Like I really want to try it, Like
• 9:39
  Speaker 1: you've just blown my mind.
• 9:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Oh man, go out and get a four pack
• 9:43
  Speaker 2: and crack the can open and then just dump it
• 9:46
  Speaker 2: in the glass as hard as you can. Just turn
• 9:49
  Speaker 2: it upside down, okay, and it won won't overflow or anything.
• 9:52
  Speaker 2: It'll get to the top and just stop and then
• 9:54
  Speaker 2: start settling.
• 9:55
  Speaker 1: Well, there's this other thing they have now too, that
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: I guess kind of takes the whole thing into a
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: new level. It's called nitro surge.
• 10:04
  Speaker 2: It's like I saw that.
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: You put it on top of the can and it
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: does it does the pouring like it would from a cask,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: as far as I understand, right there at home, or
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: you know, in the parking lot of a convenience store.
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I saw the nitro surge. I don't think they
• 10:19
  Speaker 2: sell them here yet, but it's like a I think
• 10:23
  Speaker 2: it's like a mechanical device, like does I have a
• 10:26
  Speaker 2: battery in it? Even I'm not fully sure. I stopped
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: to look into it when I realized how much further
• 10:32
  Speaker 2: it was taking me away from the widget. You know
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: what I mean?
• 10:35
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I forgot. We were talking about the widget.
• 10:38
  Speaker 2: All right, Let's get back to the widget.
• 10:39
  Speaker 1: Okay.
• 10:40
  Speaker 2: So the widget is a little plastic ball, and I
• 10:42
  Speaker 2: think this is where we got hung up earlier. I
• 10:44
  Speaker 2: don't know if you saw my most recent email, I
• 10:47
  Speaker 2: think it's a matter of semantics, because I kept saying
• 10:49
  Speaker 2: that the in Guinness on their website says it's a
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: nitrogen filled sphere, and you're like, it's not filled with nitrogen.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: I think it's just semantics because they don't literally fill
• 10:59
  Speaker 2: this ball with nitrogen and then drop it in Okay,
• 11:02
  Speaker 2: they can't. It is because it has a hole in it.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: It's you drop it in there and then fill the
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: can with nitrogen, and then that ball fills up with
• 11:12
  Speaker 2: nitrogen and beer, gotcha, got and it stays in this
• 11:16
  Speaker 2: tiny It's basically a little mini turbojet. So when you
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: crack that beer, it's a little mini ball with higher
• 11:25
  Speaker 2: pressure than the rest with then even what's inside the
• 11:27
  Speaker 2: rest of the can. And so when you crack that
• 11:30
  Speaker 2: beer and all that pressure changes, just like a regular beer,
• 11:33
  Speaker 2: it comes shooting out of that little tiny hole in
• 11:35
  Speaker 2: the plastic ball and provides this little extra boost of
• 11:39
  Speaker 2: nitrogen like a little beer jet, agitating everything to create
• 11:43
  Speaker 2: even more bubbles.
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: Right. But the specific kind of nitrogen bottles that make
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: Guinness Guinness, which are smaller and more stable, so you
• 11:51
  Speaker 1: get that foamy, creamy head in the cascade and all
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: that I get me. Yeah, all right, he did a
• 11:57
  Speaker 1: great job.
• 11:58
  Speaker 2: I think it was the semantical thing when people say
• 12:00
  Speaker 2: it's filled with nitrogen. It is, but as a virtue
• 12:02
  Speaker 2: of the canning process, they don't like fill it up
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: and go like quick throw it in there. Right.
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: You have to hold it just right, put your thumb
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: over the hole, and then just throw it in and
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: put the top of the can on really quick.
• 12:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah. It's really ingenious though. I mean it's got this
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: this tiny little hole and imagine a little ball filled
• 12:19
  Speaker 2: with like nitrogen infused beer being jetted out of this
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: tiny little hole as you're pouring, as you've opened and
• 12:24
  Speaker 2: pouring this beer. It's so simple, it's ingenious and so
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: ingenious that in two thousand and four they did a
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: survey of almost nine thousand people and they voted that
• 12:36
  Speaker 2: the Guinness widget was a greater invention than the Internet.
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: Right, and they're prong. But I get the point for sure.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: I mean it's something to put on your website.
• 12:46
  Speaker 1: I guess it depends which version of the Internet you're
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: talking about, you know.
• 12:50
  Speaker 2: Let me ask you this. Have you ever had any
• 12:52
  Speaker 2: like cream stouts? Yeah, like on Bodding Ten's or Murphy's
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: or any of those.
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: Yes, okay, yeah, the guinness, Like I just associated a
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: stout with like like I just had dinner three hours ago.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I can't drink a stout because I'll throw up, I'll
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: be too full.
• 13:10
  Speaker 2: Yes, I think that's uh. To my mind, it's a
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: misnomer because stout sounds heavy because it's a big, dark beer.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: But it's because it's not heavily carbonated like a lagger like.
• 13:23
  Speaker 2: It doesn't fill you up like that. It doesn't make
• 13:26
  Speaker 2: you gassy and burpie. It's like drinking a big thick milk,
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: which may make you feel full, but it's not from
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: like gassy fuls.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Okay, we're getting tripped up by semantics again. It to me, yeah,
• 13:36
  Speaker 1: the big milky thing. If I drank a big glass
• 13:39
  Speaker 1: of milk after I ate, I would probably throw up.
• 13:42
  Speaker 1: So it's the same thing in that sense. But no,
• 13:44
  Speaker 1: it's not making me like you know, like Coors Bankwetpeer
• 13:47
  Speaker 1: would rap burpie or whatever. Yeah. Yeah, it doesn't fill
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: you up in that sense. It like literally fills you up.
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: I gotcha.
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Yeah, So yeah, I think we're talking about the same thing. Well,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: now I'm worried that I have experienced Guinness like you're
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: supposed to, and there's not like a whole world out
• 14:04
  Speaker 1: there for me to try. Well, you may not like it,
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: I'll try it for sure. I haven't.
• 14:10
  Speaker 2: I mean, I don't drink a lot of beer anymore period.
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: And I went through a big Guinness phase in the nineties,
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: starting in college and through New Jersey. And in fact,
• 14:19
  Speaker 2: that brings me to another little factoid here. The Guinness
• 14:23
  Speaker 2: uses a floating widget since nineteen ninety seven. And I
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: was like, oh, that explains it, because in the nineties
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: we cut open the can because we were like, what
• 14:30
  Speaker 2: is that in there? And it was fixed to the
• 14:32
  Speaker 2: bottom of the can, So it was pre ninety seven
• 14:36
  Speaker 2: and during COVID with supply issues they fixed it to
• 14:38
  Speaker 2: the bottom of the can then as well. But otherwise
• 14:41
  Speaker 2: it's been a floating widget.
• 14:42
  Speaker 1: Wouldn't you have been freaked out when you cut the
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: can open and you found the thing just fixed to
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: the bottom of the can looking back up at you
• 14:48
  Speaker 1: and blink.
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like little irish Eyeball right.
• 14:54
  Speaker 1: One other thing, though, there's a I noticed on this
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: list an old speckled hen uses widget to which I
• 15:00
  Speaker 1: didn't know that used to be one of my faith
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: beers for a while.
• 15:04
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and the Bodington's, Murphy's Beamish, tet Lee's, what else,
• 15:08
  Speaker 2: Wexford bell Haven And I'm sure we've missed some, but
• 15:11
  Speaker 2: they all use the widget technology to deliver that pub
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: pub drawn flavor to your lips right there at home.
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: Yeah. This episode is Short Stuff, brought to you by
• 15:24
  Speaker 1: Corus Banquet Beer. Right. Yeah, I doubt that you got
• 15:28
  Speaker 1: anything else.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: I got nothing else. I'm sure we got some stuff wrong.
• 15:31
  Speaker 2: There's some beer fishonados that are like, I'm not quite right.
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: Guys, whatever I think you should say the thing.
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: Okay, Short Stuff is out. Stuff you should know is
• 15:43
  Speaker 2: a production of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts my heart Radio,
• 15:47
  Speaker 2: visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: You listen to your favorite shows.