THE BIGGEST STOUT brewery in the world is open for business as Taoiseach Enda Kenny this afternoon gave the official thumbs up to Diageo’s new ”Brewhouse no. 4″.
The Guinness owner developed the brewery over three years at a cost of €169m and at the peak of work in 2012 it was the biggest construction project in Ireland.
The new brewhouse is the fourth brewery built on the St James’s Gate site since Arthur Guinness took out a 9000-year lease on the land in 1759.
It follows Diageo’s decision earlier this year to pull production out of Waterford – shifting all the region’s operations to the upgraded St James’s Gate factory.
Diageo’s brewing supply director Paul Armstrong today said the company would this year export 1 billion pints of Guinness – 70 per of which was made onsite in Dublin.
That’s a lot of Guinness
The company, which also produces Baileys and Bushmills, exports over €1 billion in product from the brewery.
Kenny, who has previously criticised the nation’s drinking culture, said the brewery was “helping to shape Ireland’s recovery” as he talked up the government’s plan for jobs and economic rebuilding.
“I’m glad to say that the country is showing signs of recovery from the economic catastrophe that befell us,” he said.
He said the government would further reform the tax and welfare systems to support jobs and employers, and make it possible for young Irish emigrants to “come back home”.
We want to do everything possible, and sometimes to attempt the impossible, to build the kind of sustainable, competitive economy that will create the quantum and the quality of jobs that we need.”
Speeches are thirsty work, did the Taoiseach have a pint at least?
Not unless he sneaked one away from the cameras, but he came pretty close.
READ: Diageo records rising worldwide sales – but European sales slide
READ: What did the Guinness family ever do for us?
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