Guinness Toast
By Ed Vidunas
Republished: February 2011, February 22, 2014
This was initially published in the March 2000 issue of the TRASH Can.
America has a toast every February to a good Irish beer: Guinness.
The toast is a national event on par with Super-bowl Sunday and St. Paddy's
day. The toast takes place at the
same time in pubs across America.
After a brief parting of the lips by the toastmaster millions of
wishing-they-were-Irish lads and lassies bring their mugs together for a quaff in
unison. The toast used to take place at 9:00 pm but has been moved to 11:00 pm
to get the west coast involved at a more convenient drinking hour.
What may not be known about this event is a bit of a sore
spot with me. The toast did not
come from a Dublin pub or Guinness but was "fermented" here in
Pittsburgh. First tapped at A. M.
Lutheran Distributors in West Mifflin it was the creation of Mr. Roger Wilouby
Ray. He brought the idea to the
attention of Mr. Mel Lutheran and the rest is history. Incidentally, Roger was inspired to do
this since he couldn't find his favorite beer in Pittsburgh bars. So few bars had it ten years ago (1990) and
this got his Irish up. OK so he
was English but he drank well and only in places that had it.
What my peeve is that the (now closed) A. M. Lutheran Co.
played a major roll in getting this now nationwide event off the bar, so to
speak. This was a great event made
even greater when Guinness took it nationally. But does the country know about Pittsburgh or Lutheran? I don't think so. Guinness seems to not want to bring
this out and I think that is a shame considering the work Mr. Ray and Mr.
Lutheran put into this. It would never have happened without them. So when you hoist your Guinness pint
think of Roger and Lutheran. It is
my understanding that Mr. Ray died about 1994 or 1995.
Former Trash member Joe Kolozi contributed to this story.
