Irish Eyes Look Past Guinness

The Irish love their dark, dry Guinness stout.

But it seems the luck of the Irish has shifted on this classic beverage, as Guinness sales have declined in Ireland, and some pub drinkers are even ordering up a "'Boodweiser' from the barman," the Los Angeles Times reports:

The problem is, Irish traditions are something many Irish simply no longer have time for.

In Dublin, working and commuting now take up much of the time once spent stopping at the pub for a pint after work. And as the Celtic Tiger begins, like everyone else, to feel the effects of the global credit crunch, with home prices declining and unemployment rising, it doesn't help that a pint of Guinness costs $7.20.

"I've got a hundred-mile round-trip commute every day. So you're out of the house for 12, 14 hours a day, and by the time you do get home, all you're fit for is a couple of hours of TV, maybe dinner, and go to bed. It would never, ever cross my mind to go for a pint on the way home," said Cormac Billings, a 33-year-old investment banker who works in Dublin's city center but lives in the suburbs.

"Maybe six, seven times a year, you might meet up with your mates for a few pints, but it's always a hassle to organize," he said. "People are busy. They're married, they're having kids."

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.

The company in May announced a $1-billion modernization program that will close two of its most venerable breweries and eliminate more than half its brewery staff, while transferring most Guinness export production, including beer bound for the U.S., to a large, new state-of-the-art brewery in the Dublin suburbs.

Production at Guinness' 249-year-old flagship brewery at St. James's Gate in central Dublin will be shrunk by a third, to focus almost exclusively on beer sold in Ireland and Britain -- for those whose Guinness tastes are so refined they wouldn't accept beer brewed anywhere else. The facility, Ireland's biggest tourist attraction, will get a major face-lift.

"We listened to our consumers, and we listened to ourselves. And something like St. James's Gate is really, really important to people," said Brian Duffy, chairman of the Irish branch of Diageo, the multinational company that owns Guinness and also distributes Tanqueray gin, Smirnoff vodka and Cuervo tequila.

"Not just in terms of its connection with the beer and the connection with the family, but with Ireland. It is almost regarded as part of our heritage."

Pub owners say they still sell more Guinness than anything else, but as Ireland has joined the European Union and become a new center for banking and manufacturing, they face a clientele with more choices and broader interests.

This is interesting.

We're seeing the globalization of refreshments - for example, with the recent controversy stateside over Budweiser's proposed sale to Belgian brewing company InBev. I wonder if what's happening with Guinness is just another indicator of the homogenization of cultures.

Maybe we better call Barack Obama?