An Irishman walks into a bar in London, orders three pints of Guinness and sits in the back of the room, drinking a sip out of each one in turn.
When he finishes them, he comes back to the bar and orders three more.
“You know, a pint goes flat after I draw it,” the bartender tells him, “and it would taste better if you bought one at a time.”
The Irishman replies, “Well, you see, I ‘ave two brothers. One is in America, the other is in Australia, and I’m ‘ere in London. When we all left home, we promised we’d always drink this way to remember the days we drank together. So I drink one for each o’me brothers and one for meself.”
The bartender admits that this is a nice custom, and gives him his three pints.
The Irishman becomes a regular in the bar, and always drinks the same way: He orders three pints and drinks them all together, one sip each.
One day, he comes in and orders two pints. All the other regulars take notice and fall silent.
When he comes back to the bar for the second round, the bartender says, “I don’t want to intrude on your grief, but I wanted to offer my condolences on your loss.”
The Irishman looks quite puzzled for a moment, then a light dawns and he laughs. “Oh, no, everybody’s just fine,” he explains, “It’s just that me wife ‘ad us join that Baptist Church and I ‘ad to quit drinking. ‘asn’t affected me brothers though.