If you’re drinking with younger Kiwis this summer don’t be surprised to see them reach for a pint of Irish stout instead of the latest variety of hopped-up craft beer.
A strange thing has happened in the beer industry. In 2023, after 265 years on the market, Guinness became the biggest-selling pub beer in the UK.
This year it has been so popular there has been a Guinness shortage across the UK, with some pubs running dry.
British media blamed “Guinnfluencers”, trendy young consumers showing off their thirst for Guinness on social media.
In 2024 global sales at the drinks multinational Diageo, which owns the Guinness brand, declined for the first time since the Covid pandemic, but Great Britain bucked the trend.
“Overall sales of its beer brands grew 18% globally over its last fiscal year, primarily driven by Guinness. Great Britain and Ireland provided the biggest boost,” the Financial Times reported.
Diageo’s inability to keep up with demand shows just how surprising the boom has been — even to the company itself, which has done little in the way of marketing to drive the resurgence.
The organic, consumer-led boom has raised the eyebrows of brand marketing experts around the world.
Thankfully, we’re unlikely to suffer the same shortages here as the beer is brewed locally by Lion.
However, there has also been a resurgence of interest in Guinness in New Zealand. Lion reports sales have risen by 20% in each of the past two years.
Back in black
I certainly did my bit to help out in 2024.
A regular Guinness drinker late last century, I enjoyed it in London, Ireland and then back home in cans, but eventually drifted away, swept up in the craft beer wave.
This year, after about 25 years, I found myself drinking Guinness again - though I wasn’t quite sure why.
It turns out I’m part of a global phenomenon that has much more to do with social media and modern consumption trends than traditional advertising.
Guinness clearly doesn’t need any more promotion right now. That’s not the point of this story.
To be fair, Diageo has done some work to update its marketing. But for those who remember the original Guinness ads, that’s hardly surprising.
Diageo chief executive Debra Crew told AFP Guinness consumption was up 24% among women, as the company has shifted its marketing strategy to attract new consumers.
But locally Lion does almost no promotion or marketing — except around St Patrick’s Day.
What’s driving the demand? Why has a beer that is famously slow to pour, and that can vary in quality from pub to pub, suddenly shoot to the top of the Gen Z drinks list?
While Lion doesn’t spend much advertising the beer, it does invest in a Guinness Ambassador to work with pubs and make sure the complex liquid is handled and poured correctly.
Guinnfluencers
The man with that enviable job is Kurt Gross. I met him at The Fox tavern on Auckland’s Viaduct to find out more about the trend.
“I talk to a lot of customers and they are all saying that the demographics are changing — more young people — male and female,” he said.
“Normally Guinness drinkers were perceived as grumpy old men like me.”
And me, I guess.
“There’s nothing that Guinness is doing,” Gross says. “They’re not paying people to go around promoting it. I’m not a massive social media person but I see it popping up all the time.”
I do spend a lot of time on social media - although it’s not particularly social these days, just an endless stream of user-generated content.
Cooking, deep-frying, chocolate making, wood-turning, candle-making, people rating burgers and sandwiches — it seems like anything with a visual hook can be a hit on TikTok or Instagram.
Social media videos definitely play to one of Guinness’ strengths - the aesthetic appeal of watching the slow, frothy pour settle to a crisp divide between the black liquid (it’s actually a very dark red) and the creamy head.
A careful pour
It’s not that it is especially difficult to pour, Gross says, but it has to be done just right. The bulk of the glass has to be filled at a 45-degree angle, then it has to be left to settle for about a minute and a half, before a final vertical pour to top up the glass.
That makes it challenging for busy bartenders. But it is vital they don’t hurry it.
“Guinness drinkers are very particular,” Gross says. “They are the sort of drinker where, if they are not happy with the pour, they’ll tell you. Hence why we do the training.”
There are plenty of other things that add to the complexity of serving Guinness and can make the quality variable (although Gross maintains the local bars all do a good job).
They are sometimes dubbed “the seven Cs”: correct gas, correct temperature, clean lines, clean glassware, counter visibility, consistent freshness and crafted presentation.
Every one of those variables contributes to the quality of the final pint.
The famously creamy head on a Guinness is down to the use of nitrogen gas (rather than the carbon dioxide in most lagers), which produces much denser bubbles than lagers. The ratio of gas to beer also has to be just right.
In addition, Guinness isn’t a beer that travels well and can’t sit too long in the keg, so it needs to be served fresh and bars that serve it need to have enough regular customers to keep it flowing.
In Ireland, they’ll tell you with a straight face that the Guinness is better at one end of the bar than the other.
“Our bars that pour Guinness have to meet certain criteria of quality,” says Gross. “One of the things is a minimum turnover to ensure the freshest beer.”
Of course, all that variability just adds to the charm for many.
On social media, popular accounts feature people travelling from pub to pub rating the quality of the Guinness.
My favourite character is a stout (pun intended) British bloke with a moustache and pork-pie hat known as Prime Mutton (real name Jason Hackett). He samples Guinness (and occasionally other stouts) in daily posts. If they are good he declares them to be “a creamer”, if they are great “an absolute creamer”.
That’s it, a simple formula. The guy’s got his own merchandise already.
And there are plenty of others.
Splitting the G
There’s been no shortage of advertising industry articles trying to make sense of the brand’s social media success in the past year.
Some suggest Diageo has been smart in moving away from big, mainstream media brand campaigns to loosen its approach and support direct engagement on social media.
Historically, Guinness was quite good at advertising. Cartoon-style posters with the slogans “My Goodness, My Guinness” and “Guinness is Good for You” were a hit from the 1930s through to the 1950s. They were revived briefly in an ironic fashion in the 1990s.
Diageo did film a big-budget brand commercial with Jason Momoa in Auckland earlier this year, although it’s probably no coincidence that the Hollywood star is also a master of the social media game.
Another trend that has played to its rise in social media is called “splitting the G”.
Given the passion of young men for challenging each other to do stupid stuff — often involving drinking — “splitting the G” has been an excellent way to grab attention. Although it’s not one that Lion can officially endorse.
Basically, it involves downing about a third of the pint on the first sip, with the aim of drinking it down until the level of the beer splits the large G of the logo on the side of the glass.
That’s actually led to Diageo releasing new glasses in the UK with the name printed further up the glass, to encourage responsible drinking.
Healthy tipple
Suggesting Guinness — or any alcoholic drink — is good for you is no longer allowed (it was once touted as a drink for breastfeeding mothers).
But relative to other tipples, it isn’t terrible. At 4.2% alcohol by volume it isn’t as strong as most craft beers and, while it’s not quite low-carb, it contains fewer calories. It also contains Vitamin B folate, although the health benefits of that may have been overplayed in the 1930s.
It seems reasonable to benchmark Guinness consumption against craft beer.
Gross says it is popular with the kind of adventurous drinkers that the craft beer boom has encouraged.
“People’s palates have changed over the past 10-15 years,” he says. “The growth of craft has taken Guinness with it to an extent. But craft now is in a pretty flat space and Guinness is continuing to grow.”
In the UK, Guinness has also introduced a popular alcohol-free version - Guinness 0.0.
Because of the smooth texture and distinct flavour, it makes for one of the best alcohol-free approximations of the real thing on the market, Gross says.
In May the Financial Times reported that global sales of non-alcoholic Guinness more than doubled year on year.
Lion is looking to import the canned version here — but efforts have been delayed by a global shortage.
A cultural shift
For what it’s worth, I think there is a lesson for modern marketers in the resurgence of Guinness.
The fact Guinness is slow to pour, requires attention to detail and comes with risks and variations around quality are all things that make the brand stand out.
For a younger generation raised in a world of instant gratification and cheap, mass-produced uniformity, choosing Guinness is almost an act of rebellion.
The effort required to engage with the brand gives it meaning and value. That’s something the best craft beer brands have also identified.
We see it in youthful passion for vinyl records and vintage sneakers. I’m ever hopeful the trend might extend to newspapers and books.
Diageo — and Lion in New Zealand — have been fortunate to catch the wave organically with Guinness. But as a marketing model, Guinness offers a fresh pathway for many old-world products that might otherwise seem in danger of extinction.
Liam Dann is business editor-at-large for the New Zealand Herald. He is a senior writer and columnist, and also presents and produces videos and podcasts. He joined the Herald in 2003.
Summer questions: Veteran of tourism sector on the outlook for 2025.