A glass of Guiness Draught, a hacked-up can and the ball-shaped widget.

I really should have been more curious about the widget inside a can of Guinness Draught. I’d had a few cans in my time and not once did I think the cut the damn thing open to see what it looked like. In my life I’ve cut other things open to see how they work – most notably a toy accordion when I was a kid (note to self: the foldy bit between the two handles doesn’t have anything inside it. And your parents won’t be able to make it work again).

But until now, I’d never hacked my way inside a Guinness can. The widget surprised me; I’d always pictured it as a disc-shaped object that sat at the bottom of the can. However, as you can see from the above photo, it’s actually a small plastic ball.

After this crude surgery I then had to know how the widget worked. Seems the Guinness guys pump it full of nitrogen and pop it in the can. Then, when you open the can, the pressure in the can drops and forces the ball to squirt out the nitrogen. That then creates heaps of small gas bubbles that contribute to the fluffy Guinness head.

Isn’t knowledge a wonderful thing?

I picked up this beer in a four-pack from Aldi. I thought I’d scored big when I read the print on the can that said it was brewed and canned in Dublin. ‘‘My God,’’ I thought, ‘‘Aldi has imported Guinness.’’ I then decided to find some Guinness brewed here under licence to see which one tasted better. Wouldn’t you know it, after searching through a number of bottle shops, I came to the conclusion that all the Guinness Draught cans come from Dublin. That it’s not made here under licence at all.

As for the flavour, well, I feel that Guinness ain’t that good. It’s managed to build up its name as ‘‘the’’ dark beer for so many people but I didn’t find it much to write home about. Aside from the long-lasting and creamy head. The beer had an odd aroma that reminded me of the ink on stencils teachers would hand out in the 1970s.

Flavourwise, it’s very, very mild. Some slight hints of coffee – and a smidge of weird bacon – but not much else. For a dark beer it all tastes very thin.