The Best Pint of Guinness in the Entire State

Visiting Ireland and tasting Guinness Draught on its home turf left a black, liquid hex on Shawn O’Marro. He says, “Before I came back, I knew I wanted to have Guinness on tap in my house.” That wasn’t to be. Guinness doesn’t sell kegs to non-licensed consumers and finding a reliable source for bootleg kegs is next to impossible. There was just one thing to do. Shawn quit his job at Impromed and started a pub.

Five years later, O’Marro’s Irish Pub often pours more Guinness on any given month than any other tavern in Wisconsin. “We’re not always at the top,” Shawn says. “Sometimes we are. Sometimes we’re not. We’re almost always in the top five.” It’s fairly amazing any way you look at it. Considering the size of the market and the beers that have been historically dominate in Oshkosh, the prospects for a pitch-black ale would seem limited at best. At least until you try this one, at this pub.

At O’Marro’s Guinness is served at 48º. Not quite as warm as Shawn would like it, but close enough so that the uninitiated can belly up to a pint without thinking something has gone wrong with their beer. The multi-step pour is the difference maker. It may take a bit longer than an ordinary pint, but it’s worth waiting for. Shawn says, “We serve the best pint of Guinness in the entire state.”

He’s got a thirsty gang of advocates to back him up on that. Currently O’Marro’s has 1227 members in its Genius Club. Ten from this pack of Guinness lovers have drank their way into the elite 1759 Society, meaning they’ve downed at least 1,759 pints of Guinness at the pub. It’s a staggering number, but not an arbitrary one. 1759 was the year Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease on the abandoned brewery at St. James’s Gate, Dublin and started brewing his beer. Now here we are, 3,600 miles and 250 years away downing pint after pint of it. Arthur Guinness wouldn’t have dreamed it. Five years ago, Shawn O’Marro probably wouldn’t have, either.