For a category that’s somewhat the Marmite of the beer world, the popularity of stout is continuing to grow and that’s largely down to one brand. Love it or hate it, it’s hard to not commend the success of Irish stout brand Guinness.
But why is it so popular? Jonny Garrett, beer expert and author of The Meaning of Beer, says: “Guinness, and I guess stouts in general, are so far removed from what people consider beer to be, which is pale, fizzy lagers that it almost has no right to be as popular as it is. It’s such a removal for people to go from pale lager to stout.”
Stout tends to be seen as a heavy, strongly flavoured beer not for the amateur beer drinker, but Guinness has taken control of the narrative and created accessibility and an entry way into the category. The Diageo-owned brand saw 15% organic net sales growth this year, as reported in the Diageo Annual Report 2024, with double-digit growth for seven consecutive halves. Guinness also held or gained share in its top three markets of UK, Ireland and the US.
Guinness brand director Joyce He, contributes the brand’s success to being “driven by staying true to our heritage and product quality that has cemented our iconic status over the years, while constantly showing up in new occasions and communities” and, while this is true, it’s also much more nuanced.
The rise of zero proof
Currently, more and more drinkers are looking for low and no-abv offerings and Guinness has recognised and tapped into this space. Diageo recently pumped €30m into Guinness 0.0 to enable the St James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin to almost double production capacity to 176 million pints each year, as it now makes up 3% of Diageo’s Guinness volume globally. This comes after non-alcohol beer sales in Ireland rose 18% and production grew 50%, according to a report by Drinks Ireland. Since the launch of 0.0 in 2021, Diageo has invested €60m in the expression, highlighting demand for a high-quality no-abv pint.
However, this is not the first time Guinness has entered the low and no space. The brand launched non-alc beer Kaliber in the ’90s and Guinness Mid-Strength stout (2.8% abv) in the early 2000s, but it’s only now that the momentum has really picked up for beers of this kind. Garrett adds: “When I visited Guinness in April 2023 there was one tank of Guinness 0.0 as the world’s supply, but since then it’s grown massively. Just like the full-strength version it’s incredibly reliable and consistent without being really full-on as a drink. It’s available almost everywhere, which is a really powerful thing, and I think why low-alcohol has struggled is because every bar you go into it’s a different brand, different quality and you don’t know if you’re going to end up having a pint of lemonade because you’re uncertain.
“It’s a smaller ask to produce a low-abv beer, rather than replacing a 40% abv gin, for example. Historically, beer used to only be around 1 or 2%, so we’ve got the heritage and, to some extent, the technical know-how to produce really good low-alcohol beer. It’s just explaining to people that it’s not going to taste quite like the full strength but that doesn’t mean it won’t be a delicious pint,” Garrett continues.
Picture perfect
Comparing pints, it’s not hard to pick Guinness out of a line-up. Synonymous with black and white, it’s this appearance which led to the #LooksLikeGuinness campaign as hospitality began to pick back up post-Covid. With imagery of everyday things that vaguely resembled a pint of Guinness, it emphasised the hold the stout has. Mandy Naglich, advanced cicerone in beer and author of How To Taste, says: “People don’t go to the bar and order a stout, they go and order Guinness. I think there are a lot of things coming together for Guinness’s good luck. Definitely how it looks – when you walk into a bar you can immediately identify people who are drinking Guinness. I also think because bars need to invest in the gas to have Guinness, they also invest in its glassware, so it kind of has its own serve, which is a memorable, easy thing.”
That’s not to mention the challenge of ʻsplitting the G’, or the E on a Guinness glass – it’s up for debate. Not created by the brand, but more of a happy coincidence, the challenge is to leave the first sip dissecting the G on the Guinness logo. It’s become a modern ritual among Guinness drinkers and creates a form of self-marketing which other brands could only dream of.
In terms of its accessibility and acting as an entry point to stout, one way it’s achieved this is by adapting the serving temperature of its Guinness Draught. Guinness Extra Cold, served a few degrees cooler at around 3.5°C rather than 6-7, prevents volatiles and stronger flavours from shining through, creating a less intense version of the same beer. Garrett says that the Extra Cold “was an attempt to slightly mute the flavour and appeal to more drinkers. They’ve realised it’s a big jump from macro lager to Guinness and tried to bridge that gap a little bit. They’ve just found different formats that appeal to different drinkers as well”.
More to stout than Guinness
Despite this accessible offering, stout is still a largely misunderstood category in terms of the general consumer. Garrett adds: “I don’t think everybody would understand that Guinness is a stout. I think that most people think dark beers are Guinness in the UK. People have been baffled that anyone would try to compete with Guinness or that there are any other brands making stout. It owns that nitro-stout category to the point where you would never ask what nitro-stouts they have on tap; you would always ask if they have Guinness. That’s evidence of the monopoly it has. When they think of stout, they think of Guinness first.”
Over in the US, the verdict is similar. Naglich explains: “There’s really no big competitor for Guinness. It’s so big that small breweries which only serve their own beer will try to make their own version of Guinness. I think when you’re out in cities there’s just no real competition.”
However, there are craft brands up for the challenge. In Dorset, UK, Badger Brewery recently rolled out a new Outland stout on draught into nearly all its managed and tenanted estates. Giles Mountford, head of beer brands at parent company Hall & Woodhouse, says the introduction comes as “there’s a big opportunity there with the growth of Guinness for example”. He adds: “We’re more than capable of making that kind of beer and we invested about £100,000 in a new nitrogenater so we can do this. It means we’re not beholden to any external price rises and we can control the production and cost base better as well.
“The Outland stout is just available on draught but we’re looking at a canning solution. So far the introduction has gone really well. Some of the tenants were a bit nervous as Guinness has had a monopoly for a long time, but with the launch of things like Brewdog’s Black Heart it’s really shown that there’s opportunity there and consumers are willing to make the change. Guinness is the category word in the same way people talk about Hoover, which is a brand name – it’s ubiquitous with the category and it’s about cracking that door open,” Mountford continued.
In 2023 Brewdog launched Black Heart stout, which has seen a “fantastic response”, according to Stuart Harrison, group sales director at the company.
“We recognised a huge opportunity and a gap in the market,” he says. “Despite the stout category thriving, it had been dominated by just one brand for nearly 300 years. Black Heart provided an opportunity for a fresh, distinctively positioned brand to enter the category and unlock incremental growth. Consumers now have some choice in the stout category. As a result, value sales of Black Heart have reached £4.2m, which is 6.6% of the market leader’s value in draught.
With more craft breweries, particularly in the UK, looking to dip their toes into the ongoing success of stout, it’s clear it will take something big to sway consumers on choosing something other than a Guinness. Garrett notes: “To some extent, the craft beer bubble which has always enjoyed drinking Guinness has really helped Guinness keep its dominance, but it’s also now championing people making delicious stouts. Guinness has almost carried these small breweries with it, so people who have really got into Guinness of late are starting to experiment a bit more with different brands. But we’ll see what happens if a genuine challenger comes along. It would be wonderful to see.”
