GUINNESS IS heading home. Global drinks giant Diageo is believed to have chosen a site in Leixlip, Co Kildare, as the location for its new Guinness brewery, which will open in 2013 and operate in tandem with its iconic St James's Gate facility.
Arthur Guinness, the inspiration behind the famous pint of stout, opened his first brewery in Leixlip in 1756 before moving to St James's Gate in Dublin three years later.
It is understood that part of the 50-plus acres that will be used for the new brewery are owned by the Guinness family.
Diageo is expected to inform staff today about its plans to invest €550 million in a state-of-the-art plant that will brew the pint of plain for export markets along with other beers. No comment was available from Diageo last night.
This will be the biggest Guinness brewery in the world in terms of brewing capacity. It will employ 170 workers and all of its product will be shipped to overseas markets.
The brewery will have the capacity to produce about one billion pints a year and will also make Harp, Smithwicks, Carlsberg and Budweiser.
The opening of the brewery will be subject to planning permission from Kildare County Council.
Under a restructuring plan announced in May, Diageo will invest €100 million in upgrading its St James's Gate brewery, which will continue to produce stout for the Irish and British markets.
Breweries in Dundalk and Kilkenny will close and surplus land at St James's Gate is to be sold. About 250 jobs will be lost as part of the reshaping of its operations here.
The Leixlip announcement will end months of speculation as to the location of the new brewery.
A site at Grange Castle in Clondalkin had been hotly tipped for the new brewery, while lands in Balbriggan, Co Dublin, and Enfield, Co Meath, were also thought to have been in the frame. Diageo, however, is believed to have chosen Leixlip because of its historical links with the Guinness family and its location close to a reliable source of water.
Sales of Guinness are on the rise again in Ireland. Diageo last month said that sales of the stout increased by 2.3 per cent in the 12 months to the end of June.
The growth was driven in part by a 3 per cent rise in draught wholesale prices in March, but Diageo said the volumes of Guinness sold had also increased, resulting in a gain in market share.
Guinness's performance in Ireland marked a turnaround on the previous year, when net sales value fell 7 per cent, and was achieved despite a decline in the overall Irish beer market. Guinness sales grew by 6 per cent internationally, surging the most in Africa.