A taste test for the stout-hearted: American tourists rate Ireland's best porters

American tourist Sandy O’Neill Barnes and her family ‘blindly’ drank Ireland’s best-known porters. Guess which one they preferred? asks Louise Roseingrave

AMERICAN Sandy O’Neill Barnes is in Cork for a family reunion. The Washingtonian and her entourage of eight are participating in an Irish stout-tasting experiment in the Electric Bar on South Mall.

Sandy, flanked by her children, Chad and Kathleen, and their respective partners, Kristy and Ben, and her four grandchildren, has links to the Beara Peninsula. Her great-grandmother left Dursey Island for the US. In Montana, she met and married a man from Castletownbere.