All About Beer Magazine

Guinness, the name, appears on beers brewed in 50 different countries and sold in 100 more. Guinness the name, then, is one of the world’s great global brands. Guinness the name appears on something else rather remarkable, the best-selling copyrighted book in history. Nearly 100 million copies of Guinness World Records (previously the Guinness Book of World Records) have been sold since 1955, when it was created at the behest of Guinness managing director Sir Hugh Beaver. This means that Guinness, the name, is known by millions of people who have never let a drop of Guinness, the beer, pass through their lips. So yes, it’s safe to say that Guinness, the name, is known the world over.

Arthur Guinness the name is known the world over. Arthur Guinness the man is something of a mystery.

But Guinness, the man? Well, he is something of a mystery, even among those who walk in his shadows and perpetuate his legacy. I know. I’ve been looking for him.

The Empire

Dublin is the physical and spiritual home of Guinness, the empire. It was here that Arthur Guinness obtained a 9,000-year lease for a small plot of land in the St. James’s Gate neighborhood on December 31, 1759. Guinness’s purchase included a home for his family, a fish pond, gardens, a stable for horses, and a rundown old brewery that had not produced a beer in 10 years. The entire estate measured less than 40,000 square feet.

Today, the St. James’s Gate brewery sprawls across dozens of acres on the south bank of the River Liffey. It features a gym for employees, a theater, scores of buildings in various states of repair and use, and a state-of-the-art brewhouse with enough computers and wall-size control grids to run a nuclear power plant. It provides, among other things, all the Guinness Draught Stout for Ireland and the “diaspora” markets: Great Britain, Australia, Canada, and the United States. It also makes Guinness “essence” – a viscous, black malt extract – and ships it in MG Mini-sized plastic containers to Guinness breweries around the globe which then turn it into Guinness Foreign Extra Stout. It’s not an unsubstantial market. Nigeria, for example, is poised to surpass Ireland as Guinness’s No. 2 market after Great Britain. The St. James’s Gate brewery is, in other words, an industrial behemoth that lords over the western edge of Dublin, the consciousness of a nation, and a global business empire.

St. James’s Gate is not without its more romantic recesses, though tourists never see them: In a vast kegging room, brewers do their final quality control check, pouring from a tap in perfect two-part form the freshest pint of draught Guinness one will ever taste. Hops are stored in a 19th century brick warehouse, kept naturally cool by a hollow floor built over water. Next to this warehouse are giant roasting drums that turn golden barley into the black, acrid grains that give Guinness its famous color and distinct, toasted flavor. (Before recently enacted industrial emissions standards, an east-moving wind would carry the dank, tactile aroma of toasting grains all across Dublin.) The cement floor beneath the kettles is speckled with blackened granules. If you’re lucky enough to happen upon this corner of St. James’s Gate – and chances are you will not be – you can pick up a couple of these tiny grains, crush them between your teeth, and get a bitter, budding taste of Guinness long before it’s turned to liquid.

St. James’s Gate also boasts, amid a frenetic visitors’ center that attracts 700,000 people a year, a solemn, well-kept archive that is a repository of all things Guinness: The only known painting of Arthur Guinness is kept here. So is his original 9,000-year lease; more than 200 years of brewers’ recipes and notes; Guinness family biographies; and employee records. The archive does a brisk business in Irish-Americans seeking information about family members who once worked here. Guinness’s past is an important part of the company’s identity. The company employs three fulltime archivists, one in Clackmannanshire, Scotland, where the archives of parent company Diageo are kept, and two here in Dublin – the only corporate archivists in the entire republic.

There is plenty about Arthur Guinness reposed within the archives. He was accepted into the Dublin Corporation of Brewers, a trade group, in July 1759; married Olivia Whitmore, a cousin of Irish parliamentarian and nationalist Henry Grattan, in 1761; became brewer to Dublin Castle, the local seat of British government, in 1784; brewed the last Guinness ale in 1799, so that he might focus on producing a popular porter that was the foundation of a growing reputation. Guinness, the name, is synonymous with stout. One learns at the Guinness archive that Guinness, the man, never brewed a beer called stout.

There is, however, a notable list of items the Guinness archive does not contain: namely, little to nothing in Arthur Guinness’s own words. No personal diary. No collection of correspondence. No words of business wisdom published for the masses. What, for example, inspired a rural businessman from the horse country of Kildare to try his fortune in Dublin? Did he fear failure? Expect success? What were his highs and lows; his thoughts and hopes and dreams? Did Guinness, the man, ever imagine that one day Guinness, the name, would be known on all corners of the planet? There are many questions about Arthur Guinness, the man. He left behind few answers.

Where, Guinness devotees might inquire, did Arthur Guinness learn to brew beer? The Guinness empire is built upon this knowledge. Surely, someone must know the answer. In 1928, family historian Henry Seymour Guinness compiled a lengthy set of notes for a guidebook to the Dublin brewery that’s kept in its archives. “No evidence is forthcoming,” he wrote, “to indicate how or where Arthur acquired a knowledge of brewing.”

Perhaps the key to unraveling the mysteries of Guinness, the man, lay elsewhere. With archivist Eibhlin Roche’s roadmap of Ireland in hand, I set out to see the world Arthur Guinness had known.