The LA Times has an interesting article today on the changing state of Guinness in the beer drinking life of Ireland:
Ireland is still the second-biggest beer-drinking market in the world, after the Czech Republic. But beer consumption has declined 15% since 2001. Rural pubs were closing last year at the rate of more than one a day, victims of high taxes, increasing supermarket sales and a nationwide smoking ban that went into effect in 2004. Add to that an explosion in demand for wine and high-end coffee here, and Guinness now sells more beer in Nigeria - "there's a drop of greatness in every man," the ads for the extra-robust, 7.5% alcohol foreign extra stout tell Nigeria's receptive males - than it does on the Emerald Isle.
About 20 years ago, my brother came back from a visit to the relatives in Scotland complaining about the jukebox in the family's ancestral village playing "Born in the USA" more than any other tune. We live in the globalized market and even Guinness is not unassailable in its own home town. We seldom talk in the beer chattering classes about the role of large scale imports - other than perhaps periodically mocking Stella - preferring to debate macro v. micro, factory v. craft.
But it is generally through these imports that people first meet diversity in flavour. One wonders whether a beer culture that is homogeneous in its demand for Guinness is any more interesting than one that is solely focused on industrialized pale lager, even with those hundred or more labels pretending that the lagers represent difference. One wonders if some of the displaced Guinness brewery staff may spin off a few new local breweries, too.
Comments
The Beer Nut - July 13, 2008 7:16 AM
Why is it that every article like this repeats the publicans' propaganda? I swear people who write them have never been in an Irish pub or paid attention to what was happening there. I'm sure the smoking ban has had some effect. But why are people going to the supermarket? Because they get choice and value for money there which doesn't exist in pubs. Why is tax a problem? Because every time the government raises duty (which it doesn't do much) the publicans add a little more on the top for themselves for no reason other than greed.
Irish pub sales are declining because the pub offers a poor choice of low-quality product at unreasonably high prices. There is no competition between pubs and the licensing laws have made the industry into a cartel and any effort at liberalising it and making it easier to set up and run a pub has been fought viciously, and defeated, by the publicans and their high-powered political allies.
We may be a nation that will do anything for a drink, regardless of how it tastes or what it costs, but tastes are changing, bit by bit. Just, please, never ever trust a word the publicans say. They are the Irish drinker's second-worst enemy, after himself.
Thom - July 14, 2008 8:44 PM
The Beer Nut speaks the truth. The average Irish pub hasn't a thing to offer anyone with even a passing interest in decent beer. I was mulling this over the other night while I drank a bottle of Becks that cost me 6 euro. Guinness tastes of little or nothing nitrogenated and served as cold as it is. I only drink it as a last resort.
Stonch - July 16, 2008 11:39 AM
Pretty poor article in the LA Times, all things considered. Beer Nut speaks sense above. Clearly it's been badly reseached - the ref. to Guinness selling more in Nigeria isn't news. Nigeria is a country of over 140 million people ompared to Ireland's 4.1 million. It's long been a bigger market for Guinness-branded products (the Guinness sold in Nigeria is brewed in that country). Indeed the UK is a massively bigger market for Guinness than Ireland, and always has been.