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The seventh member of the Big Six. Somehow excluded from their club, Guinness wasn’t seen as one of the big brewers, because they owned no pubs. Ironically, it was Guinness who brought down the tied house system with a complaint which eventually led to the Beer Orders in the 1980s.

Because they owned no pubs and had a bottle-conditioned beer in every pub, Guinness mostly escaped the ire of CAMRA. And weren’t considered part of the evil Big Six, despite having a market share as large as that of Courage.

The company operated two European breweries: St. James Gate in Dublin and Park Royal in London. The latter was opened in the 1930s in reaction to trade friction between the UK and the newly-founded Republic of Ireland. In General, the North of England and Scotland received beer from Dublin and the South from London.

Before 1970, the vast majority of Guinness sold in UK pubs was in bottle-conditioned format. Most of which wasn’t bottled by Guinness themselves, but by other brewers or third-party bottlers. For example, in Leeds, all the Guinness in Tetley’s pubs was bottled by Musgrave & Sagar, a former brewery in the town.

In 1970, a satellite racking facility was built in Runcorn. This seems to have been mostly dedicated to filling Draught Guinness into kegs. The beer came from both their Dublin and London breweries. It had an annual capacity of 500,000 barrels and was intended only to supply the North of England.

Guinness needed the facility after signing agreements with 19 of the 20 largest breweries to sell draught Stout in their pubs. At Park Royal, where kegging had taken place up until then, there was insufficient space for expansion.

For home brewers, Guinness Extra Stout was an excellent source of a very active yeast. Me and my brother used it often.


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