other uses see guinness disambiguation . guinness type beer ; dry stout manufacturer diageo country of origin ireland introduced 1759 ; 257 years ago 1759 guinness n s is an irish dry stout produced by diageo that originated in the brewery of arthur guinness 1725 1803 at st. james s gate dublin . guinness is one of the most successful beer brands worldwide . it is brewed in almost 60 countries and is available in over 120 . 1 2 annual sales total 850 million litres 1.5 billion imperial or 1.8 billion us pints . 1 a feature of the product is the burnt flavour that is derived from roasted unmalted barley although this is a relatively modern development not becoming part of the grist until the mid 20th century . for many years a portion of aged brew was blended with freshly brewed beer to give a sharp lactic flavour . although the guinness palate still features a characteristic tang the company has refused to confirm whether this type of blending still occurs . the draught beer s thick creamy head comes from mixing the beer with nitrogen and carbon dioxide when poured . 3 it is popular with the irish both in ireland and abroad and in spite of a decline in consumption since 2001 4 is still the best selling alcoholic drink in ireland 5 6 where guinness & co. makes almost 2 billion annually . the company moved its headquarters to london at the beginning of the anglo irish trade war in 1932 . in 1997 it merged with grand metropolitan to form the multinational alcoholic drinks producer diageo . contents 1 history 2 composition 3 health 4 varieties 5 pouring and serving 6 sinking bubbles 7 culinary uses 8 advertising 9 worldwide sales 10 merchandising 11 see also 12 references 13 further reading 14 external links history edit see also guinness family sign at the market street entrance crane street gate guinness brewery arthur guinness started brewing ales in 1759 at the st. james s gate brewery dublin . on 31 december 1759 he signed a 9 000 year lease at 45 per annum for the unused brewery . 7 8 9 ten years later on 19 may 1769 guinness first exported his ale he shipped six and a half barrels to great britain . there have been claims that arthur price a welshman took the original recipe with him to ireland where he hired a servant richard guinness whose son later opened the brewery . 10 11 stout originally referred to a beer s strength but eventually shifted meaning toward body and colour . 12 arthur guinness started selling the dark beer porter in 1778 . 13 the first guinness beers to use the term were single stout and double stout in the 1840s . 14 throughout the bulk of its history guinness produced only three variations of a single beer type porter or single stout double or extra and foreign stout for export . 15 porter was also referred to as plain as mentioned in the famous refrain of flann o brien s poem the workman s friend a pint of plain is your only man . 16 already one of the top three british and irish brewers guinness s sales soared from 350 000 barrels in 1868 to 779 000 barrels in 1876 . 15 in october 1886 guinness became a public company and was averaging sales of 1 138 000 barrels a year . this was despite the brewery s refusal to either advertise or offer its beer at a discount . 15 even though guinness owned no public houses the company was valued at 6 million and shares were twenty times oversubscribed with share prices rising to a 60 percent premium on the first day of trading . 15 the breweries pioneered several quality control efforts . the brewery hired the statistician william sealy gosset in 1899 who achieved lasting fame under the pseudonym student for techniques developed for guinness particularly student s t distribution and the even more commonly known student s t test . by 1900 the brewery was operating unparalleled welfare schemes for its 5 000 employees . 15 by 1907 the welfare schemes were costing the brewery 40 000 a year which was one fifth of the total wages bill . 15 the improvements were suggested and supervised by sir john lumsden . by 1914 guinness was producing 2 652 000 barrels of beer a year which was more than double that of its nearest competitor bass and was supplying more than 10 percent of the total uk beer market . 15 in the 1930s guinness became the seventh largest company in the world . 17 unreliable source before 1939 if a guinness brewer wished to marry a catholic his resignation was requested . 17 according to thomas molloy writing in the irish independent it had no qualms about selling drink to catholics but it did everything it could to avoid employing them until the 1960s . 18 guinness thought they brewed their last porter in 1973 . 12 in the 1970s following declining sales the decision was taken to make guinness extra stout more drinkable . the gravity was subsequently reduced and the brand was relaunched in 1981 . 19 pale malt was used for the first time and isomerized hop extract began to be used . 19 in 2014 two new porters were introduced west indies porter and dublin porter . 20 guinness acquired the distillers company in 1986 . 21 this led to a scandal and criminal trial concerning the artificial inflation of the guinness share price during the takeover bid engineered by the chairman ernest saunders . a subsequent 5.2 million success fee paid to an american lawyer and guinness director tom ward was the subject of the case guinness plc v saunders in which the house of lords declared that the payment had been invalid . in the 1980s as the ira s bombing campaign spread to london and the rest of britain guinness considered scrapping the harp as its logo . 18 the company merged with grand metropolitan in 1997 to form diageo plc. 22 due to controversy over the merger the company was maintained as a separate entity within diageo and has retained the rights to the product and all associated trademarks of guinness . the guinness brewery park royal during demolition at its peak the largest and most productive brewery in the world the guinness brewery in park royal london closed in 2005 . the production of all guinness sold in the uk and ireland was moved to st. james s gate brewery dublin . 23 guinness has also been referred to as the black stuff . 24 guinness had a fleet of ships barges and yachts . 25 the irish sunday independent newspaper reported on 17 june 2007 that diageo intended to close the historic st james s gate plant in dublin and move to a greenfield site on the outskirts of the city . 26 this news caused some controversy when it was announced . the following day the irish daily mail ran a follow up story with a double page spread complete with images and a history of the plant since 1759 . initially diageo said that talk of a move was pure speculation but in the face of mounting speculation in the wake of the sunday independent article the company confirmed that it is undertaking a significant review of its operations . this review is largely due to the efforts of the company s ongoing drive to reduce the environmental impact of brewing at the st james s gate plant . 27 on 23 november 2007 an article appeared in the evening herald a dublin newspaper stating that dublin city council in the best interests of the city of dublin had put forward a motion to prevent planning permission ever being granted for development of the site thus making it very difficult for diageo to sell off the site for residential development . on 9 may 2008 diageo announced that the st james s gate brewery will remain open and undergo renovations but that breweries in kilkenny and dundalk will be closed by 2013 when a new larger brewery is opened near dublin . the result will be a loss of roughly 250 jobs across the entire diageo guinness workforce in ireland . 28 two days later the sunday independent again reported that diageo chiefs had met with t naiste mary coughlan the deputy leader of the government of ireland about moving operations to ireland from the uk to benefit from its lower corporation tax rates . several uk firms have made the move to pay ireland s 12.5 percent rate rather than the uk s 28 percent rate . 29 diageo released a statement to the london stock exchange denying the report . 30 despite the merger that created diageo plc in 1997 guinness has retained its right to the guinness brand and associated trademarks and thus continues to trade under the traditional guinness name despite trading under the corporation name diageo for a brief period in 1997 . in november 2015 it was announced that guinness are planning to make their beer suitable for consumption by vegetarians and vegans by the end of 2016 through the introduction of a new filtration process at their existing guinness brewery that avoids the need to use isinglass from fish bladders to filter out yeast particles . 31 32 composition edit guinness stout is made from water barley roast malt extract hops and brewer s yeast . a portion of the barley is roasted to give guinness its dark colour and characteristic taste . it is pasteurised and filtered . citation needed making the product requires knowledge in the sciences of microbiology mycology bacteriology and thermodynamics . 33 despite its reputation as a meal in a glass guinness only contains 198 kcal 838 kilojoules per imperial pint 1460 kj l 34 slightly fewer than skimmed milk orange juice and most other non light beers . until the late 1950s guinness was still racked into wooden casks . in the late 1950s and early 1960s guinness ceased brewing cask conditioned beers and developed a keg brewing system with aluminium kegs replacing the wooden casks ; these were nicknamed iron lungs . 35 the production of guinness as with many beers also involves the use of isinglass made from fish . isinglass is used as a fining agent for settling out suspended matter in the vat . the isinglass is retained in the floor of the vat but it is possible that minute quantities might be carried over into the beer . 36 37 38 39 draught guinness and its canned counterpart contain nitrogen n2 as well as carbon dioxide . nitrogen is less soluble than carbon dioxide which allows the beer to be put under high pressure without making it fizzy . high pressure of the dissolved gas is required to enable very small bubbles to be formed by forcing the draught beer through fine holes in a plate in the tap which causes the characteristic surge the widget in cans and bottles achieves the same effect . citation needed this widget is a small plastic ball containing the nitrogen with also just a little beer itself . citation needed the perceived smoothness of draught guinness is due to its low level of carbon dioxide and the creaminess of the head caused by the very fine bubbles that arise from the use of nitrogen and the dispensing method described above . foreign extra stout contains more carbon dioxide 3 causing a more acidic taste . contemporary guinness draught and extra stout are weaker than they were in the 19th century when they had an original gravity of over 1.070 . foreign extra stout and special export stout with abv of 7.5 % and 9 % respectively are