Porter is nearly gone, but it’s not forgotten. This is the story of Johnny Rotten… or at least, it begins with him.
“One of the things that really made Guinness cool to me was going to see Public Image Limited with English singer, songwriter, and musician Johnny Lydon,” says Jonathan Reeves. He would watch as Lydon—aka Johnny Rotten—would guzzle stout after stout on stage. “And the whole time, I don’t know how many Guinness Stouts he drank. He would drink it out of the bottle—not the draft stuff. This was before nitro. And I mean, Johnny Lydon was just slamming them back. So I was like, ‘Man, this is my beer.’”
Reeves—now brewmaster at Port City in Alexandria, Virginia—has always liked beer. His dad would drink one or two a night, sometimes giving his boy a sip or two. One of his earliest memories is swiping a paper cup full of Bud from a keg at a picnic when he was about six years old. “But it wasn’t until I tried Guinness that I really was like, ‘Wow, you know, this is how beer can be completely different.’ I started drinking when I was 18 because I’m old. And my mother got me a case of Guinness for my 18th birthday. It just was my original connection.”