There has been a national shortage of draught Guinness. It’s hard to believe that a vast multinational such as Diageo could have let this happen, especially over the Christmas/New Year holiday, and given that sales have recently been increasing. My local was restricted to one keg a week and some pubs resorted to issuing ‘ration cards’. Demand was such that according to the Guardian, in December, a lorry loaded with 400 50-litre kegs (equivalent to around 35,000 pints) was stolen from a logistics hub in Northamptonshire.
The capacity issue, if that is what it was, was exacerbated by the closure of the port of Holyhead following damage to its piers inflicted by Storm Darragh in early December. It was not due to reopen until 15 January at the earliest. There are alternative routes but these quickly became overcrowded. Diageo said, “Over the past month we have seen exceptional consumer demand for Guinness in Great Britain. We have maximised supply, and we are working proactively with our customers to manage the distribution to trade as efficiently as possible.” Originally, they promised to maintain a full supply across the island of Ireland but they backtracked on that.
Some of the increase in demand comes, I am told, from Guinness becoming the favoured drink of a generation that, curiously, I have also been told has turned its back on alcohol. Apparently, ‘Generation Z’ particularly enjoy a ‘Skimmed Guinness’ which is a ‘half and half’ mix of the normal product and Guinness 0.0%, which is becoming more widely available on draught.
This is, I think, a good opportunity to take a look at the phenomenon that is the ‘black stuff’, to which cask beer drinkers often resort when nothing better is available. Coincidentally, over Christmas, the BBC repeated a programme called ‘Inside the Factory’, a documentary about the St James’s Gate brewery. From this I learned that the brewing plant is just ten years old and produces 20 million litres of stout per day. Hops are not grown commercially in Ireland, so Guinness source their hops from Worcestershire, including from Stocks Farm, owned by well known hop advocates Richard and Ali Capper. The hop varieties include Target. The 7.5% ABV Foreign Extra Stout is now also brewed at St James’s Gate, as well as in Nigeria, Kenya, Ghana and Jamaica among other countries, usually under licence.
It the light of the crisis, lots of ‘interesting’ information has appeared on social media, little of which bears repeating. I was surprised at the number of people who did not know that, since the sad closure of the Park Royal brewery in 2005, all Guinness in the UK been supplied from Ireland. For the full story of Park Royal, see Christine Cryne’s excellent article here.
It used to be that Park Royal supplied the UK as far north as Liverpool while Dublin-brewed Guinness was supplied north of that. At one time, it was brought across the Irish Sea in ships equipped with bulk tanks, docking at Runcorn on the Manchester Ship Canal. The last two ships in service were the Lady Patricia (built 1962) and the Miranda Guinness (built 1976). Both were taken out of service and broken up in 1993.
CAMRA took the opportunity to remind people that alternatives were available. A list of stouts was provided, selected from the winners of various CAMRA champion beer competitions. Sadly, for that reason, the list only included one London-brewed beer. This was London Brewing Company’s 100 Oysters Stout (4.6% ABV), which was the winner of the silver award in the stout category of the 2017 Champion Beer of Britain competition. It was also the Champion Beer of London in 2023. There are, of course, plenty of others to choose from. Most London independent brewers have a dark beer in their portfolio. You might also find Murphy’s and Beamish & Crawford, both originally from the City of Cork but now both owned by Heineken and there are also three ‘nitro’ stouts brewed in London: Anspach & Hobday’s London Black, Fullers Black Cab (recently on promotion) and Young’s London Stout (brewed by Carlsberg Britvic).

For many years, Guinness were pioneers in modern advertising, usually featuring their iconic toucan character. It is well worth looking at their website for more on this fascinating subject. Look out for the posters designed for an abandoned sales campaign in Germany in 1936. Of course, these days, they are not allowed to say that ‘Guinness is good for you’. Guinness also sponsor sport, in particular the Rugby Six Nations championship which starts on 31 January. They will want to get any supply problems sorted out by then.
Finally, London should be getting its own Guinness brewery sometime this year. This will be the much delayed 50,000 square foot ‘Guinness at Old Brewer’s Yard’ microbrewery and culture hub in Covent Garden. It is said to be costing £73 million.