Frenchman confused by Guinness widget aided by helpful Irish group

For many, there's no better way to enjoy Guinness than when poured into a pint, in a bar, with a great bit of head on top.

Sadly, this can't always be the case and Guinness cans rose in popularity while pubs were shut.

However, they can also cause confusion for those who have never had them before - as one European found out on Saturday.

A French Reddit user took to the Ireland subreddit forum for an explanation to his baffling beer question.

"Today I bought a can of Guinness.. and there's like a sphere at the bottom of the can," he wrote.

"What's the sphere for?"

Confused by the Guinness widget, the nitrogen filled capsule that surges with bubbles with the ring pull is opened on your lovely can of Guinness and ensures a nice creamy head on your beer, he was helped out by a few Irish reddit users.

“It's a widget. When the can is opened the pressure changes inside releasing nitrogen gas from the widget which permeates the Guinness and gives it a creamy texture,” explained one.

The world-famous Guinness widget, a nitrogen filled capsule that ensures a creamier can of Guinness (Twitter/Sam Hall)

“Guinness uses nitrogen to move through the beer lines and to form a head in the glass, but most canning lines use CO2 which is the standard for beer, so the ball/widget simulates the kind of Guinness you get in a pub but from a can,” another went on to say.

The grateful Frenchman was amazed by the new information, “that's amazing, thank you very much, wondering why it's not standard in all beer cans.”

In fact, the Guinness widget is actually more amazing than you might think.

Before the world-famous nitrogen-filled Guinness widget was invented in 1988, bottled draught Guinness was never that popular for home drinking as it required an “initiator” to keep your beer creamy which looked like a syringe and was flimsy and time consuming.

The Guinness widget has even previously won invention of the year in 1994, beating a surprising contender - the Internet.

That’s right, in 1994 a lovely creamy pint from a can was deemed more important than the entire Internet by the voting public.

You can only imagine that, back then, we must have been just as amazed as Reddit's Guinness-loving Frenchman.