Last week was my favorite week of the year.

My liver had been training for this particular Saturday since the start of the semester. The global celebration of Ireland’s crippling inability to stop brewing and drinking its superior beers is right around the corner. You don’t want to be the weirdo drinking a Budweiser – or heaven forbid, an English beer – on the big day. In fact, you don’t want to be drinking anything that doesn’t have tiny step dancers at the bottom of the bottle to stir up the flavors and aroma. No one trains their tiny dancers better than the true patron saints of Ireland, the brewers at Guinness.

By the time you’ve finished reading the first half of this sentence, you’ve heard that Guinness is good for you. Not only that, but studies have shown that if you buy me a Guinness, I won’t start working up the courage to ask out your sister.

The mythic fountain of youth has its origins in the taps at the Guinness brewery. However, the cartographers of the Age of Exploration, who were about as accurate as the Apple Maps of today, put the fountain somewhere in Florida. Given the abundance of retirement communities in Palm Springs and the even greater abundance of hilarious old guys in Irish pubs, I’ll let you do the geography yourself.

Guinness is a beer to start a conversation with because it’s like drinking a loaf of bread – really, really good bread. Along with an empty glass, every Guinness leaves you with personal satisfaction, from your first sip to the last. That’s a lie, your first sip might involve you wondering what you’ve gotten yourself into. Don’t panic, take a deep breath and make sure it was poured correctly.

I’ve been raised to storm out of bars that don’t pour correctly. Don’t get me started if the barkeep isn’t using the proper glass. Guinness is the original “You’re Not Doing It Right!” beer. Serving someone a Guinness is a strictly observed ritual, and any other way is robbing you of your experience. The server should begin pouring while your official Guinness glass is at an angle, with the head reaching the harp above the logo. It can be helpful to keep a finger on the harp to be sure. Your beer should look like you just poured a car bomb right now – and that’s OK. Wait for it to settle down before topping your glass off until the head rises just above the rim of the glass.

If you’re at any point suspicious the Guinness you’ve been served hasn’t been poured correctly, you can be sure the barman is a redcoat and should be force-fed fish and chips until he finally admits it makes more sense to call them fries.