he pint is the singularly most identifiable and bona-fide Irish export around the world. When you utter the word “pint,” many will presume you mean “Guinness.” Some hear the phrase “pint of Guinness” as “pint of genius.” There are some essential precepts to bear in mind when drinking that remarkable and inimitable stout first brewed behind Dublin’s St. James’s Gate nearly 250 years ago. As you make your way through the bars of Los Angeles, these observations should help you differentiate between the genuine Irish “pub” (short for “public house”) and that outsized sports bar with the Irish moniker.

Here are a few principles of “pintmanship,” to borrow a word from a four-page chapter in Tom Corkery’s Dublin, to help you appreciate the drink, the barman, and the environs.

First, there’s the glass. “To see stout confined in a half-pint glass is a sad sight, like having to look at a lion in a monkey’s cage,” declares the “Pintmanship” essay. Be sure that your Guinness is served in an “Imperial Pint,” which contains 20 ounces, rather than the standard 16-ounce U.S. pint.

Then, there’s the pour. The formation of the pint of Guinness has its own modest little ceremony. The tap is pulled forward to fill the glass three-quarters full and then put aside for the gas bubbles (which, as you can witness, travel downward in a pint of Guinness) to settle and cascade. The tap is next pushed back until the pint is topped off to produce the drink’s white head. Although opinions vary on precisely how long it takes to pour a pint of Guinness – I’ve heard and read anywhere from two to ten minutes – certainly the process involves a few stages more than the average libation and slightly more patience on the part of the drinker with a powerful thirst.

In 1988, Guinness introduced a “Pub Draught” can with a “floating widget” that allowed drinkers their own at-home version of the slow pour and reproduced the head on the pint, but nothing takes the place of a well-pulled pint in a pub. Regardless of how long it takes to be presented with your pint, all barmen would agree that you should give the drink around a minute to settle before imbibing.

Increasingly, Guinness has been served somewhat colder than in the past. It used to be said that it was best served around room temperature. (Some have pointed out that Irish “room temperature” is undoubtedly a bit more frigid than that of Los Angeles.) A Guinness representative for Southern California said that Guinness, even in Ireland’s pubs, is now cooled to between 35 and 42 degrees. One writer on drink for Dublin’s Irish Times, who maintained that Guinness served cold is an abomination, observed that some believed it was already too cold well before the advent of recent cooling technology. Like the number of minutes required for the proper pour, the debate over temperature continues to rage.

“It’s an acquired taste, if you’ve never had one,” says Paul Diskin, who has worked in bars in Dublin and Chicago and owned the bar at O’Brien’s Pub (2941 Main St., Santa Monica, 310-396-4725) for 11 years. “Once you acquire it, you’ll love it for life. No question,” he adds. Opposite the bar at O’Brien’s is a wall festooned with John Gilroy’s classic Guinness posters in which stout drinkers perform Herculean feats and members of the animal kingdom have been known to quaff a few.

One Westside pub crawl might take you down the street from O’Brien’s to Finn McCool’s (2700 Main St., 310-452-1734). Named for the great warrior-poet of Celtic myth who led the Fiana (and whose two hounds are also said to be his cousins), Finn McCool’s resembles an authentic Irish pub because it is one; Gerri Gilliand shipped the bar from outside Belfast and had it rebuilt in Santa Monica.

Along with O’Brien’s and Finn McCool’s, you’ll find fine pints at The Auld Dubliner (71 S. Pine Ave., Long Beach, 562-437-8300), Sonny McLean’s (2615 Wilshire Blvd., Santa Monica, 310-828-9839), Tom Bergin’s (840 S. Fairfax Ave., L.A., 323-936-7151), Molly Malone’s (575 S. Fairfax Ave., L.A., 323-935-1577), and The Irish Times (3267 Motor Ave., Palms, 310-559-9648).