St JameS's Gate & the Open Gate Brewery

At Guinness, there is a rich heritage of innovation. As a result, we have an experimental brewery at St James’s Gate, which has been running for over 100 years. Called the Open Gate Brewery, this is where creative brewers explore new recipes, interpret old ones and experiment freely to develop new beers.

In 2015, we opened the Taproom at the Open Gate Brewery, where anyone can come along and taste our beer before the rest of the world gets to. This has been invaluable as we can get great feedback and it also allows us to share our passion for beer and brewing.

I joined the team just before the Open Gate Brewery Taproom Bar opened and it has been an exciting journey to work with such freedom to explore new recipes in beer!

Creating New Beers

For beer development, I work on new recipes at a small scale first. I get inspired by different things, from food and drink that I enjoy, to new flavours that I discover when travelling. For example, after visiting the botanical gardens in Dublin we created a list of new and exciting beers to brew.

I am always looking for new ingredients and seeing what I can use to elevate and accentuate different hops. For example, when working on the Irish botanical ale, I searched the Irish countryside and experimented with lots of ingredients such as wildflowers and herbs.

Once we have developed the beer at a small scale, we go through consumer research to get feedback until we finalise the beer. From here, we scale up the recipe for larger-scale production. Quality is such an important aspect of our innovations, so we run trials to ensure the beer maintains the superiority that Guinness is famous for.

Future of Beer

It’s an exciting time for beer. With the trend of craft beers not slowing anytime soon, more people are getting interested in beer and are keen to explore different beer styles.

I think in the future there will be more craft beers with more unique flavours. For example, I experiment with lots of new yeast strains and barrel finishes for beer.

Another trend that is already starting to take off is low-to-non-alcoholic beers. It is going to be an important segment of the overall beer category. It has already led to significant advances in production methods and technology.

I think the choices available to beer fans looking to moderate or abstain, will continue to grow and grow.