Inside new Guinness brewery attraction open for first time in London complete with free pints and new beers
GUINNESS has opened a £75million brewery in London offering exiting new beers and even the chance to take a stout selfie – stoutie.
The new Open Gate Brewery will instead brew a range of new experimental beers alongside tours, a gift shop and plenty of chances to try a pint of the famous stout.
The Covent Garden site cost just under £75 million and spans several Victorian warehouse-style buildings where four core beers will be brewed on site – a London porter, lager, IPA and pale ale.
There will be seven more beers which will be exclusive to the new brewery including the Winter Warmer and Apricot Sour.
The beer made on site is exclusively available in the tasting room, restaurants and bars on site and the drinks are named in honour of the local area – Convent Classic IPA, Old Brewer’s Yard Porter and Piazza Pale Ale.
Dublin-brewed Guinness will still be on tap of course, and visitors can even have their selfies or “stouties” printed on the head of their beers for a truly personal pint.
The site itself has been used for brewing on and off for three centuries and will be the first UK-based Guinness brewery open to the public.
Previously, the stout was brewed at Park Royal in West London until 2005 but the Open Gate location is both a micro-brewery and attraction.
The new location will
Barry O’Sullivan, the managing director of Diageo Great Britain, said: “London has played a critical role in Guinness’s success throughout its history, and two centuries after the black stuff arrived in the UK capital, one in seven pints poured in the city is now a Guinness.”
He added that he expects to see half a million punters walk through the gates in the first year and that the venture is a “vote of confidence” in London’s hospitality industry.
Mr O’Sullivan said the new brewery will create 250 jobs.
Heading up the restaurants is executive chef Pip Lacey – who previously worked under Gordan Ramsay.
Her debut restaurant won rave reviews and she will be at the helm of three different food stops – a seafood restaurant on the fifth floor, “grilled feasting” on the ground floor and a casual pie place on in the courtyard.
Mr O’Sullivan and Diageo’s global director for beer, vodka, liqueurs and convenience, Gráinne Wafer, hope for the brewery will have a ripple effect for hospitality across the city.
Iconic London pubs like Soho’s the Devonshire are already in talks with the team to get something in the pipeline.
O’Sullivan said: “I live in Soho, and there’s a really special relationship with everything we do.”
Whilst this is London’s first public Guinness brewery, Open Gate sites have opened up in Baltimore and Chicago and both report uplift across the city, in Guinness sales and the wider hospitality sector.
For a look inside the factory, visitors can take a £30 tour of the brewery or for something more special a £95 “Guinness masterclass”.
The “Open Gate Experience” at £30 includes a behind-the-scenes look at the micro-brewery and promises to be a “tasting adventure never experienced before”. The tour is 90 minutes and incudes a tasting flight.
The £95 “Guinness Masterclass” includes a complementary engraved glass as well as a masterclass and trip into the brewery’s archives. The experience allows punters to “get closer to Guinness than you’ve even been before”.
The masterclass is available on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 3pm only, starting in February.
Visitors can pour their own pint and sip it – or split it – in Bar 232, named in honour of the temperature that the barley is roasted at for the iconic stout.
The gift shop at the end of the tour offers G-branded glasses, football shirts, beer towels, golf balls, chocolates and for those short feeling festive, Guinness Christmas jumpers.
The brewery officially opened its gates on December 11 and looking ahead it seems it will be a lovely day for a Guinness.