When youāre with someone in the pub, and they order a Guinness, you know exactly what is about to happen as they take their first gulp. The glass is set back down on the table as a band of foam settles somewhere around the middle of the G; someone makes a small cheer, the drinker looks overly pleased with themself, and then nobody has anything else to say. I personally quite like Guinness; I donāt mind how it tastes, but I just canāt seem to love it the way that everyone else does. Iāve secretly been hoping for the day that Guinness loses its ācoolā appeal, and thankfully, I think that may be quite soon.
What had always been a well-respected drink suddenly exploded in popularity after younger consumers started making it their drink of choice. In fact, around Christmas in 2024, popularity grew so quickly that pubs had to start rationing their supply.
The same enthusiasm for the drink can be seen online, where The Schooner Scorer racks up hundreds of thousands, occasionally millions, of views for simply rating Guinnesses. This renewed popularity has now also reached television with House of Guinness. The show itself was very popular, earning a five-star review from The Guardian who described it as āan irresistible rompā.
Guinnessā favour among younger drinkers may also partly be due to the drinkās photogenic qualities. The high-contrast pint looks good in photos in a dark pub, with its golden head and harp against a dark, chocolatey liquid. Perfect for a photo dump.
Then there is the performative aspect of drinking it. Ordering a Guinness has become a way for men to seem cool or different while simultaneously fitting into masculine cultural expectations. It enables them to identify with the tote bag-wearing, matcha-drinking, Clairo-listening ‘performative’ guy, while still being āmachoā enough to drink stout. Additionally, Guinness appeals as it is separate from other beer brands – most of which have a notorious history of sexist advertising.
The current romanticisation of Irish culture may also have something to do with this popularisation of Guinness. Think of the internetās current fixation on Paul Mescal and Andrew Scott, and the moment Irish musicians such as Fontaines D.C. and Kneecap are having. This is echoed across the internet with influencers visiting Ireland. Take Brittany Broskiās Ireland vlog, for example, which is very funny, but is also peppered with considerable Guinness merchandise and references. This tourist appeal of Guinness in Dublin is aided by their interactive Storehouse, an experience which has been expanded to Londonās Guinness micro-brewery.
This brings me back to the pub, and that foam sitting halfway through the G. For me, splitting the G is something people do when they have nothing else to talk about or when theyāre compensating for a lack of personality, though I can see how it might be useful when trying to earn some approval amongst a new group of people. However, what I really canāt stand is how people get so uptight about how a pint is poured or how cold it is. I understand wanting to enjoy something youāve paid for, but you don’t need to be so particular about it. At the end of the day, a crisp pint can be lovely, but Itās just not good enough for me to justify how wound up everyone is about it.
And as soon as you can walk into an Urban Outfitters to buy a T-shirt with Guinness plastered across it, any coolness it originally had is gone. It’s the popularity that almost seems artificial, in combination with the commercialisation of the drink, that I think will finally make everyone admit the āGuinness momentā is over.