# Guinness Bullet? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [February 2, 2004, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guinness-bullet/227162 "2004-02-02T07:11:04Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 6\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Souless\_slicer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b5a626/32.png) [@Souless\_slicer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Souless_slicer)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guinness-bullet/227162/1 "2004-02-02T07:11:04Z")
Ok what is the blastic Missle thingy in the bottom of a Guinness Draught bottle? Good times to be had… ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 7:16am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guinness-bullet/227162/2 "2004-02-02T07:16:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Using brain cells that might have solved the third-world debt crisis, a couple engineering types invented a little plastic device, known in brewing circles as a “widget,” that’s placed in each can (not bottle) of Guinness Draught. (See patent info at www.ivo.se/guinness/patent.html.) When you pop the top and pour, the pressure in the can drops to ambient, stout squirts out of the widget, and nitrogen is liberated from solution and aerates the exiting beverage. Result: nitrogen microbubbles galore, same as if the pouring were done by your local barkeep. [http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000526.html](http://www.straightdope.com/columns/000526.html) ---
**Author:** ![Eleusis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/f4b2a3/32.png) [@Eleusis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Eleusis)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 7:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guinness-bullet/227162/3 "2004-02-02T07:18:00Z")
I might add that at the time of the article, Guinness didn’t have the chargers in bottles, only cans, so Cecil was correct. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guinness-bullet/227162/4 "2004-02-02T08:55:27Z")
For the record; it used to be the case that four-packs of bottled guinness were supplied with a little plastic syringe - the stout would be poured and then the syringe would be used to repeatedly suck up and squirt out a small amount of the stuff, creating the head. ---
**Author:** ![Popup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/94ad74/32.png) [@Popup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Popup)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guinness-bullet/227162/5 "2004-02-02T10:50:09Z")
> [@Mangetout](#): > > For the record; it used to be the case that four-packs of bottled guinness were supplied with a little plastic syringe - the stout would be poured and then the syringe would be used to repeatedly suck up and squirt out a small amount of the stuff, creating the head. I’ve never seen that. When were they around? It sounds like it might work, but I can see why they kept researching. The widget solves the problem in a much neater way. ---
**Author:** ![Mangetout](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mangetout/32/19_2.png) [@Mangetout](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mangetout)\ **Post date:** [February 2, 2004, 11:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/guinness-bullet/227162/6 "2004-02-02T11:10:42Z")
> [@Popup](#): > > I’ve never seen that. When were they around? > It sounds like it might work, but I can see why they kept researching. The widget solves the problem in a much neater way. It would have been the late seventies/early eighties when I saw them in use at one of my parents’ parties… Can’t find an online image of them, but it wasn’t just an ordinary syringe; the plunger and the sides had plastic rings that the fingers and thumb fit through, so that it could be operated with a single hand - the nozzle was (I think) a ring of fine holes around the circumference of the end.