Baltimore’s Guinness boosts beer tourism

They expect it to draw several hundred thousand visitors a year. From what we saw, the new Guinness facility in Baltimore could do that and more.

The brewery did a superb job renovating and repurposing an old whiskey aging building dating to 1933, which was for many years the home to Lord Calvert Whiskey. In the remodel, Guinness added a 10-barrel brewery, spacious taproom, attractive restaurant, large outdoor beer garden with food truck area, branded merchandise store, historical exhibits, and visitor center — and it still has tons of room for barrel aging. (The building’s top two floors are still empty.) Guinness is a part of the Diageo Beer Company.

The building takes up one plot on a 62 acre property, which also contains other large buildings for storing, blending, and bottling Diageo spirit products, such as Captain Morgan Rum. Within the Guinness section of the property also sits a new 100 hL (82-BBL) production brewery, at which the brewery has begun producing all its Guinness Blonde American Lager, (and, in time, other new beers) for the US market.

The ribbon was cut ribbon on August 3, and the restaurant will open by the end of the month. Guided tours will begin in September after Labor Day. The $80 million facility will generate about 160 new jobs.

Being just right up the road from West Virginia, this place will make an awesome beer road trip.

Not an Irish brewer on staff

No standard Guinness Stout will be brewed in Baltimore. Only unique, American beer will be made at this brewery. All the Guinness Stout and Foreign Extra Stout sold on draught there will be shipped over from the St. James Brewery in Dublin.

Making a break with its Irish roots, the Baltimore brewery is loaded with top American brewing talent. It will produce a variety of distinctly American craft-style beer. This is an exciting development.

These guys are serious. Just look at who their brewing leadership team includes:

Peter Wiens, brewmaster. Wiens was with Stone Brewing for about five years and most recently led the development of Stone’s Richmond, Virginia brewery. Member of the Master Brewers Association of the Americas. UC Davis trained.

Hollie Stephanson, head brewer. Before joining Guinness, Stephenson was head brewer at Highland Brewing in Asheville, and before that worked at Stone Brewing for over five years.

Sean Brennan, senior brewer. Formerly lead brewer at Jolly Pumpkin Brewing and also brewed with the Jolly Pumpkin-related Northern United Brewing Company.

Not your father’s Guinness

Since the iconic Guinness Stout is so ingrained in people’s minds, it will surely take some time for the brewery to convince American craft fans that it can also brew solid, contemporary American-style beer. With the above-mentioned brewers leading the show, however, it should not take long. And with all that Stone experience on board, you can bet these guys will brew some awesome IPAs.

During grand opening weeks, these Baltimore-made beers were on tap:

• A “mid-coast-style ” Guinness IPA
• Milk Stout
• White Ale
• Crosslands Pale Ale
• Hoppy Pale Ale (Galaxy)
• Citra Wit
• Belgian-Style Apricot Pale Ale
• Black IPA
• Northwest IPA
• Oatmeal Stout
• Chery Stout
• Barrel-Aged Stock Ale
• Guinness Blonde

Don’t expect any of these special taproom-only beers to hit distribution right away, although the brewery does plan to use its new production brewery to produce some smaller runs of these for regional distribution in the near future. First among them are likely the Guinness IPA and Milk Stout.

Expect a sour and aged experience

Possibly the most exciting development for craft aficionados is that Sean Brennan will develop the barrel-aging and sour-beer programs at the brewery. Brennan said he loves the history at Guinness and looks forward to taking that history and making a new tradition. He says they have given him the green light.

In developing the sour program, it is going to be fun to see what Brennan does with all the Guinness brewing resources available to him. One example: he now has access to all the Brettanomyces stains that Guinness has isolated and collected through the decades at its Dublin brewery.

Brennan is also committed to culturing their own wild Baltimore yeast from the local area. He says to expect upcoming small-batch bottlings for sale in the brewery store.

The facility has a huge barrel aging space, with many barrels already in place. Due to their connections with Diageo, Brennan can get all the whiskey and spirits barrels he needs. Case in point: we tasted an excellent beer that was aged in Bulleit Bourbon barrels.

Supporting Local

Diageo announced last year when they hired Wiens that he would “lead development of new offerings that celebrate the American and Maryland tradition of brewing.” In that vein the brewery has already done a collaboration beer with nearby Heavy Seas Brewing and have about four more collabs in the works with other area breweries. Their Crosslands Pale Ale was brewed using Maryland-grown hops and malt. They say they are committed to have taps with local ingredients.

Museum quality displays

Changes to Guinness Blonde

It seems clear that Guinness is making changes to its Blonde American Lager, likely in an attempt to produce better sales. When it was released to market four years ago, Guinness called its Blonde American Lager “a collaboration between the Guinness brewers in Dublin and their counterparts at the Latrobe Brewery in Pennsylvania.” It described the resulting beer as an American pale lager “akin to that of the 1930s: a crisp, light beer that’s big on flavor.”

The beer apparently never caught on well. Maybe Americans weren’t particularly enthralled with paying $8 or $9 a six-pack for a light, crisp American lager “akin to the 1930s.”

Recently, Guinness announced they were making a change, and that, going forward, all Guinness Blonde will be brewed in Baltimore at the new 100 hectoliter production brewhouse. The brewery said that, “In fact, the first thing our brewers did when we got the place up and running was to refine our Blonde recipe.” But then they go on to say “the basics are very much the same.” It is hard to tell how much change they are admitting to.

Guinness does say the Blonde is fermented with the very same 125 year-old yeast strain as Guinness Draught Stout. Wouldn’t that make the beer an ale instead of a lager? It is confusing. Aside from the Ireland-derived yeast, they say all other ingredients are purely North American. Their new write-up mentions using Mosaic and Citra hops, where previously the marketing literature said the hops included Mosaic, Willamette, and Mount Hood. Reviewers used to say the hops were barely perceptable, but again, that’s what one might expect from an American lager akin to 1930.

Hopefully, the new, refined Blonde embraces a more up-to-date aroma and taste profile. Guinness just released its made-in-Baltimore Guinness Blonde today and expects it to hit the streets very soon. Let’s give it a try and see how they did.

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Guinness Open Gate Brewery & Barrel House

The brewery is here to combine 259 years of Guinness brewing experience with American beer creativity. They see the U.S. as the world’s epicenter of beer innovation. American brewers excel at re-interpreting traditional styles and creating new ones. So, they decided it’s time to open their first stateside brewery since 1954. The site in Baltimore will take everything they have learned in Ireland and up the ante with an experimental brewery, taproom, restaurant — and a barrel house, enabling them to experiment using their centuries-old expertise in aging beer in wood.

5001 Washington Blvd.
Relay, MD 21227

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Diageo Beer Company

Diageo Beer Co. (formerly Diageo-Guinness USA) is the U.S. beer and flavored malt beverage business of Diageo. Brands within Diageo Beer Company include Guinness, Harp, Smithwick’s and Smirnoff ICE. Diageo is a global company, with its products sold in more than 150 countries worldwide. Diageo’s beer operations produced an estimated 13.2 million barrels of beer last year, ranking it 16th among the world’s largest brewers.

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Beer Now Conference

A group of beer bloggers and writers visited the Guinness Open Gate Brewery & Barrel House during its grand opening week. The visit was a pre-conference activity of the Beer Now Conference, which would take place in Loudoun County, Virginia on August 10-12, 2018.