Sales boom for Guinness 0.0

Ireland | Diageo will invest EUR 30 million (USD 32 million) in its Dublin brewery St James's Gate to keep up with the rising demand for its alcohol-free Guinness, which was launched in 2020. Media reported in October that sales of Guinness 0.0 on draught increased by almost 50 percent last year.

The new investment will see about 14 percent of the production at St James's Gate devoted to Guinness 0.0, allowing Diageo to brew about 176 million pints (990,000 hl) of 0.0 in a year. It doubles the capacity from 2023 and brings the total investment to EUR 60 million.

Aidan Crowe, Operations Director for Beer at Diageo Ireland, said the production of non-alcoholic Guinness is expected to continue to grow, but that the company has stopped trying to predict at what rate. Non-alcoholic Guinness is made in the same way as Guinness draught and then the alcohol is removed through a process called cold-filtration, which takes a number of days.

In Irish pubs, a pint of Guinness 0.0 costs the same as the stout, with prices ranging between EUR 4.50 and EUR 9 (in Dublin).