President Obama and his wife, first lady Michelle Obama, did Monday what Queen Elizabeth II and Prince Philip declined to do last week : drink a pint of Guinness in Ireland. In fact, Obama today became the first US president in a long time -- perhaps ever -- to down the symbolic Irish drink, a rite of passage for visitors. A full report by the Associated Press is below. [Photo credit: AFP/Getty]

DUBLIN (AP)-- Downing a Guinness is a rite of passage for any visitor to Ireland, but too often the VIPs, including some US presidents, disappoint the Emerald Isle.

Not President Obama. He may be criticized for taking too long to make up his mind at times, but he didn't hesitate today when offered a pint of the dark brew. Obama downed it in four slurps and won cheers across Ireland for it.

"The president actually killed his pint! He gets my vote," said Christy O'Sullivan, a government clerical worker who was taking a long lunch break to watch live TV coverage of Obama's visit to Moneygall, the tiny village where his maternal great-great-great grandfather lived and worked. "He's the first president I've actually seen drink the black stuff like he's not ashamed of something."

Previous American presidents didn't fare as well as Obama.

In 1984, Ronald Reagan rejected the Guinness and instead posed for photographers with a pint of Smithwicks, a locally brewed red ale. He didn't finish it.

In 2006, George W. Bush, a recovering alcoholic who drinks non-alcoholic beer, wasn't asked to pose with a pint of Guinness at all.

Many expected more from Bill Clinton, but ended up deeply disappointed. In 1995, Clinton stopped at a Dublin pub bearing his family's Irish name of Cassidy but barely sipped his stout. Aides said he didn't want to be photographed drinking anything alcoholic, but the resultant image was hardly an endorsement of the product. Clinton had abandoned his almost full half-pint.

But today an American president finally savored his pint the way a local expects. Audiences watching the moment -- deliciously drawn out by Obama for close to a minute -- shouted encouragement at their TVs and cheered as he took a hearty swallow and polished it off. Mrs. Obama drank her half-pint, then got behind the bar herself and pulled two pints.

Obama even ended up with a bit of a frosty moustache, another trademark of tackling a creamy-headed stout. He revealed to pub-goers that it wasn't his first pint in Ireland either and suspected that the Irish were holding back their best brew for themselves. He said he first drank stout when he flew into the airport in Shannon, Ireland, en route to Afghanistan.

"I tried one of these and I realized it tastes so much better here than it does in the states," he said. "What I realized was that you guys, you're keeping all the best stuff here."









[Photo credits, from top: AFP/Getty; Associated Press; Associated Press]