Diageo will spend €30 million boosting production of Guinness 0.0 at St James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin to keep pace with customers’ thirst for the non-alcoholic stout.
The drinks giant says demand for the alcohol-free drink has grown substantially since its launch three years ago.
On Friday it announced plans to invest millions more in its production at the Dublin plant for the Irish and international markets. The move will almost double St James’s Gate’s capacity for brewing to 176 million pints a year and will bring total spending on it to €60 million, Diageo calculates.
Sales of the alcohol-free draught grew almost 50 per cent between February 2023 and February 2024, the company revealed on Friday. It hopes to have the beer in 2,000 pubs across Ireland by Christmas, up from 1,700 currently.
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Aidan Crowe, its beer operations director, said the investment reflected “the bright future we see” for non-alcoholic drinks. He noted that it was further evidence of the group’s commitment to Guinness 0.0.
“St James’s Gate is the global hub of Guinness 0.0 production for markets around the world and this investment goes a long way in supporting that work and continues the legacy of true innovation here in Dublin,” he said.
Industry figures show Irish drinkers are rapidly developing a taste for non-alcoholic beers. Drinks Ireland, part of employers’ lobby Ibec, recently said sales of alcohol-free beer rose 18 per cent last year, accounting for two of every 100 pints sold. Non-alcoholic beer has a 14 per cent slice of the market in Spain alone.
Overall, in the EU it accounts for 7 per cent of the market, or one in every 14 beers sold, and brewers here believe that Irish trends point the same way. Sharply rising demand sparked a 50 per cent surge in alcohol-free beer production, according to the industry body’s Irish Beer Market Report, published during the summer. Those figures also showed that stout, led by Guinness, held 35.6 per cent of the market here in 2023.
However, Irish people are drinking less beer, with the amount consumed by every individual down last year. It has fallen 11 per cent since 2019.
London and New York-listed Diageo is a leading global drinks producer whose brands include Guinness, Baileys Irish Cream, Johnny Walker and J&B scotch, Tanqueray gin, Don Julio tequila and Smirnoff vodka.
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