Beer Today publisher Darren Norbury on the rise of Guinness to UK top spot and our love affair with dark beers in their many forms
Guinness is the market leader when it comes to nitro stout, and has now been revealed as the biggest selling beer in British pubs. It’s more than just a beer, as any aficionado will tell you. The theatre of the pour — the two stages, the clearing of the intense black liquid, the topping up of the glass — is all part of the allure. The marketing over the years has drawn new pilgrims in, from the Toucan of the early 20th century to the surfers riding the white foam to the intense beat of Leftfield’s Phat Planet.
Those of us who don’t drink it regularly have generally supped it when it’s the most reliable choice on offer at a strange bar. “Nothing I fancy, here. I’ll take The Guinness Option.” Occasionally, it really comes up trumps. When I used to play for our pub pool team we found ourselves at St Just Rugby Club, at the far tip of Cornwall, on a wet winter night, with little else but the famous Guinness font on the bar. But blimey, what a pint! Probably the best Guinness I’ve ever tasted or ever will. Chilled enough for that proper Guinness experience, but not so chilled that the lovely roasted notes were dampened.
There are two notable curiosities regarding Guinness’s ascent to British pubs’ best-selling beer. Firstly, it has overtaken Carling, which makes one wonder whether our near four-decades love affair with fizzy cold yellow lager is coming to an end. It’s unlikely to be because Carling drinkers are moving to another lager as, in my experience, macro lager drinkers tend to be defiantly loyal to their brand. Perhaps they are moving to independent brands, like the magnificent Utopian in Devon. Perhaps they are cutting down on alcohol or trying low and no brands, such as Lucky Saint.
That’s not my thread today, though. My thought today is how stout has got big, because impressive though the Guinness figures are, there are a lot of good Guinness-esque brews out there, too. so the market really is huge. In our pub we have Mena Dhu, from St Austell Brewery (the name translates as Black Hill from the Cornish language). Same colour, same two-stage theatrical pour. For me, a slightly more fruity taste that the original ‘black stuff’, but very popular with customers all the same. Take two recent male customers of a certain age. “Two pints of Guinness, please.” “We don’t do Guinness. We have Mena Dhu.” “Oh, I don’t think we’ll like that. Two pints of Thatchers, then.” “Just try a little bit of it.” “Oh, go on then…” Ten pints later, well, you get the picture.
Anspach & Hobday, the London-based brewers, have enjoyed huge success with a nitro porter, London Black, which, along with many other brewers’ products, regularly defeats Guinness in blind taste tests. The beer is gradually expanding its footprint nationwide, and in November the brewery completed an expansion project to be able to keep up with demand. Wadworth, too, has its own nitro stout throughout its estate and in the free trade. Corvus (the Latin name for Raven) is 4.1% ABV, smooth and creamy. Sound familiar?
And this week Joseph Holt in Manchester has launched its Trailblazer stout. As I reported: “This is the first time Joseph Holt has brewed its own stout. Already, Trailblazer has trouced sector-leader Guinness in a blind taste test.” (Read the full story here.) These brewers are discovering that porters and stouts appeal across a wide age range, and to women as much as men.
So the future of porters and stouts looks assured, with a wide market base. And yesterday afternoon I enjoyed a couple of halves of St Ives Brewery’s Zennor oatmeal stout. Interestingly, it was on draught in the brewery’s newish taproom, in Hayle, on keg and cask (with the Guinness-sponsored Six Nations on the big screen). Again, the keg version is a very acceptable substitute for Guinness and may become popular in West Cornwall premises. But the cask gets my vote for aroma and a being a little more flavoursome, to me, without the chill.
Long may there be such a lovely choice of stouts for us dark lovers. What are you favourites? Let me known on social media.
