I’m not sober: City women love Guinness like fish and chips-Research

 Photo:Courtesy

Beer is largely masculine. Guinness Stout is even more macho. Not any more. More and more women are loving the syrupy taste of ‘engine oil’ or ‘GK’ as its nicknamed in some quarters. 

While women who drowned copious amounts of Guinness were looked at suspiciously, especially those who drank it ‘dry,’ today, it is the in-drink among city women, according to the latest research from Consumer Insight Africa, on alcoholic beverage drinking trends among Kenyan women.

So, what has changed?

Well, there is a feminist aura of a woman drinking Guinness.

For Fidelis Mutua, a community health worker, Guinness exudes a class of a kind and it also proves men are not the only emperors of drinking.

“Why do men want to have a beer and order, for us, some funny, sweet drinks? I love it when I can buy myself Guinness. It is a legendary, feared drink that would make them (men) treat me with respect” she explains.

Fidelis also soberly thinks there is swag associated with Guinness as “you are perceived to have deep pockets. The swag is when you have about two on the table at a time unlike those who will flood the table with other beers.”

Peter Chege, a city banker, has shared drinks with women, who love Guinness, thinks they love it for its capacity to be smooth when mixed with soft drinks mostly Coke, whose sugar makes it more intoxicating. What’s more, women loath the foam and sourness in lager beers.

Chege, also says women who take Guinness are not “your average types” and a “woman drinking Guinness depicts self-reliance. She is moneyed and not the kind to entice with a beer. Actually they appear respectable and of a certain class.  You can share a table with such lady and she will not ask for a drink from you.” 

Then there are unverified health benefits from that long running perception that Guinness increases breast milk production as well as being a solution to painful maternity deliveries.

Purity Gakii runs a pub at Nkubu, Meru, and from her interaction with all manner of patrons, says women go for Guinness as they believe it has higher levels of calcium besides it being chakula kinywaji of a kind.

“You get high easily and it gives the body lots of energy. If a first-timer is introduced to it well, they always fall for it. We get that energy and power women need even in the bedroom” she reveals.

 Angelina Ngui concurs arguing Guinness is more than a “sex morale booster.” “If you are about to give birth and you have been taking the drink you will have a smooth, painless delivery.”   Esther Njeri, a waitress in Githurai doesn’t buy those health benefit angles otherwise “every pregnant woman would be taking it”.

She also doesn’t understand the new crave  women have for Guinness, a drink she studiously avoids.