Mark Zuckerberg needed one sip of Guinness to become the internet's latest pub debate

Mark Zuckerberg only needed one mouthful of Guinness to set off a wave of jokes online. A clip from a podcast appearance shows the Meta boss taking a sip, pausing awkwardly and pushing the pint away, and viewers quickly decided his face had said plenty.

The moment came during an appearance on John Collison's Cheeky Pint podcast, where Zuckerberg was joined by Meta's Chief of AI, Alexander Wang. The conversation was about Meta's newest frontier AI model, Muse Wonder, but a pre-chat toast ended up becoming the talking point instead.

As the three men raised pints of Guinness, Zuckerberg took a drink and appeared to regret the choice almost immediately. He seemed to hesitate over swallowing, glanced to one side, moved the stout around in his mouth and then finally got it down. After that, there was a brief silence, and he slid the glass farther away from himself.

That was enough for the clip to take on a life of its own online. It was shared to Reddit with a caption suggesting he was only acting like he enjoyed the drink, and commenters piled in from there. Some said he looked like he was trying to chew the Guinness rather than drink it. Others joked that even people who do not like Guinness usually manage a more convincing first sip. Another group leaned into the long running gag that Zuckerberg can seem robotic, comparing the moment to a machine malfunction caused by contact with a very human beverage.

Why Ireland entered the Guinness conversation

The reaction drew extra attention because Zuckerberg is also set to spend more time in Ireland with his wife, Priscilla Chan, after buying Strancally Castle.

The Gothic three-storey property looks over the River Blackwater and sits near both Tallow in Waterford and Youghal in Cork. The house was originally built around 1827 and stands on a 440 acre estate. Its floor area is listed at 1,486 square metres, and the property has been fully renovated over the past 20 years.

Zuckerberg bought the estate from Michael and Giancarla Alen Buckley earlier this summer for a price that was not disclosed. Before that, it had been thought the deal was somewhere between 20 million euros and 30 million euros.

Guinness fans say there is a technique to it

Part of the fascination with the clip is that Guinness drinkers often insist there is a proper way to tackle a pint. One explanation offered alongside the debate says the trick is to get your lips below the foamy head and into the stout itself, because the head has a more bitter taste.

Done properly, the drink should leave a line of white foam above the upper lip. Barack Obama was held up as an example of someone who handled it well during his 2011 visit to Moneygall in Ireland, where he has family roots.

There is also an older Irish challenge built around the stout: finishing a Guinness in three drinks, with a pause between them. In other words, for many fans this is not just another pint, which helps explain why one uneasy sip from one of the world's most famous tech billionaires became such an easy target for the internet.