At St James’s Gate Brewery in Dublin, engineers in hi-vis vests are watching over a noisy maze of stainless steel pipes with flashing temperature and pressure gauges. What they are up to would have been blasphemous to its founder, Arthur Guinness, more than 265 years ago.
They are removing the alcohol from the famous Irish stout recipe, a cold filtration process that adds an extra day to the nine days it takes to make Guinness, from barley to beer.
This 60ft room where the UK’s biggest-selling non-alcoholic beer is created is, frankly, underwhelming — but is nonetheless so secret that even its head of quality, Steve Gilsenan, does not have keycard access to it. There is a debate at the door over whether I am