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  3. March 17th is St Patrick’s day, a celebration of all things Irish — and of one thing in particular. Around Ireland and all over

March 17th is St Patrick’s day, a celebration of all things Irish — and of one thing in particular. Around Ireland and all over

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问题     March 17th is St Patrick’s day, a celebration of all things Irish — and of one thing in particular. Around Ireland and all over the world people will celebrate with a pint or two (or three, or four) of Guinness, Ireland’s unofficial national intoxicant (酒类饮料). Publicans love St Patrick’s day, so much so that it can sometimes feel like less a celebration of Irish culture than a marketing event for Guinness’s owner, Diageo. Now exported to more than 120 countries, the black stuff has become a powerful symbol of Ireland. But how Irish is it really?
    Arthur Guinness, who founded the brewery in Dublin in 1759, might have been surprised that his drink would one day become such a potent national symbol. He was a committed unionist and opponent of Irish nationalism, who before the Irish Rebellion of 1798 was even accused of spying for the British authorities. His descendants continued passionately to support unionism — one giving the Ulster Volunteer Force ￡10,000 in 1913 (about ￡lm, or $1.7m, in today’s money) to fund a paramilitary campaign to resist Ireland being given legislative independence. The company was alleged to have lent men and equipment to the British army to help crush Irish rebels during the Easter Rising of 1916, afterwards firing members of staff whom it believed to have Irish-nationalist sympathies.
    The beer the company has become most famous for — porter stout — was based on a London ale, a favorite of the street porters of Covent Garden [(科芬园) (伦敦中部一个蔬菜花卉市场)] and Billingsgate markets. Since 1886 the firm has floated on the London Stock Exchange, and the company moved its headquarters to London in 1932, where it has been based ever since (it merged with Grand Metropolitan and renamed itself Diageo in 1997). Even in terms of branding, the company was considering disassociating itself from its Irish reputation as recently as the 1980s.
    Worried about the impact on sales of the IRA’s terrorist campaign during the Troubles, Guinness came close in 1982 to re-launching the brand as an English beer brewed in west London. But as Northern Ireland’s situation improved in the 1990s, the company’s marketing strategy changed again towards marketing the beer as Irish, aiming its product at tourists in Ireland and the estimated 70m people of Irish descent living around the world. Now the Guinness Storehouse, part of the original Dublin factory which was reopened as a tourist attraction in 2000, promotes Guinness to tourists as an Irish beer once again.
    Guinness is not the only company to play up or hide its national origins to try and boost sales. Jacob’s biscuits have been marketed by some shops as being British, in spite of the company’s origins as an Irish company from Waterford. And Lipton now markets its black teas on the strength of the company’s British origins, in over 100 countries — except Britain, where it is not commonly sold. In a world where multinational companies control a large chunk of the global food supply chain, national identity — at least in branding — matters as much as ever.
Which of the following is true about porter stout?
选项 A、It is a kind of beer produced by Lipton.
B、It is a kind of London ale popular in Britain.
C、It is a most famous beer of Diageo.
D、It got its name in 1997.
答案C
解析 第3段首句中两个破折号之间的porter stout．是The beer me company has become most famous for的同位语，而其中的the company即指Diageo，即让Diageo公司声名大噪的啤酒就是porter stout。C)与此同义，故为答案。A)中的Lipton在末段提到，是生产红茶的，不是生产啤酒的。第3段首句提到porter stout是在伦敦麦芽啤酒基础上发展来的，它并不是伦敦酒，故B)错误。第3段倒数第二句提到，公司在1997年重新更名为Diageo，并不是说在1997年为Porter stout"命名，故D)错误。
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