Forged Irish Stout is marketed as "the world's creamiest stout" — a positioning that puts it directly into the territory Guinness Draught has occupied since 1959. Both are 4.2% ABV nitro Irish dry stouts brewed in Dublin and sold in 440ml widget cans at very similar retail prices. So we did the obvious test: poured them blind, side by side, in identical glasses, and asked four drinkers to call out the differences.
The setup
Two cans of each beer, fridge-cold, opened at the same time. Each pair poured into matched 20oz nonic glasses, allowed 90 seconds to settle, then served to four tasters with the labels covered. Tasters were asked three questions about each glass: Which is which? Which do you prefer? What words would you use to describe each one? No prep, no priming, no marketing copy on the table.
Tasters: two Guinness drinkers (one regular pint-poured pub-only, one widget-can-at-home), one craft beer drinker, one occasional stout drinker who'd never had Forged.
What they noticed
Most striking finding: nobody got it right on appearance alone. The two glasses look identical to the casual eye. One taster, after a long stare, said: "There's a tiny bit more amber on the right" — and was correct that the right glass was Forged. But it took them more than thirty seconds to spot it.
On aroma, three of the four tasters could pick Guinness on the burnt-roast intensity alone. Forged's aroma is genuinely more restrained.
On taste, the front-palate sweetness on Forged was noted by all four tasters. Words used for Forged: "softer," "sweeter," "smoother," "easier." Words used for Guinness: "drier," "more bitter," "more roast," "more 'stout-y'." Two tasters preferred Forged ("less aggressive"); two tasters preferred Guinness ("more like a stout should taste").
The 50/50 split that matters
That two-vs-two split lines up with what the marketing copy already implies. Forged is built for drinkers who like the idea of stout but find Guinness's bitter finish too assertive. Guinness is the canonical version of the style and is built to taste like one. If you've ever ordered a Guinness and thought "I wish this was less bitter at the end" — Forged is the beer for you. If that bitter tail is the entire reason you order Guinness — Forged will read as anaemic.
Where the marketing oversells
The "world's creamiest stout" claim isn't borne out by a side-by-side. None of our tasters described Forged as creamier than Guinness; one called the two textures "indistinguishable." Both use widgets; both produce the same kind of nitro creaminess. The claim is brand confidence, not laboratory finding.
Where Forged genuinely earns its position
- The dry-clean finish. Forged's tail is the cleanest, quickest finish of any of the mainstream Irish dry stouts. That's not nothing.
- Drinkability for non-stout-drinkers. Two of our tasters who don't normally drink stout finished their Forged glass; one didn't finish their Guinness. That's a real product-fit point.
- Predictability of the can. The widget pours every time. There's no badly-poured Forged at home; you can have badly-poured Guinness at home if you don't follow the instructions.
The verdict
Forged Irish Stout is exactly what the marketing positions it as — a smoother, sweeter, less aggressive nitro Irish dry stout, well-engineered for people who want the texture without the full traditional bitter tail. Calling it "the world's creamiest stout" is a stretch. Calling it "a competent and approachable session-strength alternative to Guinness Draught" is fair. Side-by-side, two of four drinkers prefer it. That's a respectable result for a brand that's three years old up against a 267-year-old institution.
Our full review
For a deeper read on Forged Irish Stout, see the full review. For more head-to-heads with Murphy's, Beamish, O'Hara's, Porterhouse Plain Porter and Wicklow Wolf, see the comparisons hub.