That Little Ping-Pong Ball in a Guinness Can Is an Engineering Marvel

I bartended for nearly a decade, and I treated every Guinness pour as if it were a delicate flower.

Regardless of whether it was a slammed Saturday night or a quiet Monday lunch, Guinness drinkers deserved a creamy, deep, dark, and thick pint.

The two-part ritual took me about 115 seconds to pour (“115 seconds”: also my nickname in college).

I took pride in serving every Guinness pint with passion and precision.

My Guinness-pouring mindset was sort of like what Yankees Hall of Fame Joe DiMaggio said about playing hard: “There is always some kid who may be seeing me for the first or last time, I owe him my best.”

In my post-bartending years, I still enjoy drinking and pouring Guinness.

Except it’s rarely out of draft, now it’s mostly out of cans. And I still marvel at how similar a can of Guinness tastes compared to draft.

And look, nowadays, tech is so easily overlooked. Like, putting a camera inside a grain of sand or some shit is now pretty much uninteresting. So, let’s not overlook old-school engineering feats like ping pong balls inside a can of beer.

I stand by this statement: The Guinness can widget is an engineering marvel.

Here’s how it all works: