Guinness is to develop a second brewery in the US, with Chicago the chosen location.
The Diageo-owned brand, which is synonymous with St James's Gate in Dublin, has experienced a huge surge in popularity since Guinness opened its first $50 million (€42m) brewery and visitor centre in 60 years in Relay, close to Baltimore, in 2018.
Now, just over 200 years since Guinness first started being shipped to the US, Diageo is opening its second brewery in the US in a former railroad depot in the Fulton Market part of Chicago.
The Guinness Chicago Taproom is scheduled to open in early 2023. Chicago is one of the brand’s largest markets in the US. More than 200,000 people in Chicago claim Irish ancestry, equivalent to about 8 per cent of the city’s population.
Jay Sethi, chief marketing officer for Diageo in the US, told the Chicago Sun-Times the city was a "natural choice" for Guinness from both a historical and business standpoint.
The US facilities will not brew Guinness itself, which will continue to be imported from Ireland. It will have other brands too, some of which were first developed at its experimental Open Gate brewery in Dublin.
Guinness was established in 1759 when Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease on the St James’s Gate brewery. It is now brewed in 49 countries and sold in more than 150 countries, with 10 million glasses of the stout consumed each day.
Guinness also owns breweries in Malaysia, Nigeria, Ghana and Cameroon.
