"Backed by its owner Diageo's 2.7bn marketing war chest, the brand has shaken off its old man reputation, becoming a staple of gen Z pub culture, exploiting its Instagrammable colour scheme and social media trends such as the splitting the G drinking game. The resulting increase in younger drinkers and women catapulted its market share in pubs to a new high of 17.5% in 2025, helping it retain top spot as the nation's top-selling beer, with more than 2m pints pulled every day."
"Such has been the clamour for the black stuff that pubs across the country triggered a panic in the run-up to Christmas 2024, when some reported a shortage and introduced rationing. However, enterprising upstarts are increasingly muscling in, fuelling a boom in independent brewers of nitro stout. Nitros take their name from the nitrogenation process, pioneered by Guinness in the 1950s, in which the beer is infused with the gas, alongside carbon dioxide."
Guinness leveraged a large Diageo marketing budget to modernise its image, attracting younger drinkers and women and reaching a 17.5% pub market share in 2025 with over 2 million pints poured daily. Strong demand caused supply panics and rationing in late 2024. Nitro stouts get their creamy mouthfeel and cascading head from nitrogenation, a process Guinness pioneered in the 1950s. Independent breweries such as Titanic Brewery and Anspach & Hobday are expanding in the nitro category, aiming to offer distinct alternatives rather than mere imitations, with some independents’ flagship stouts forming the majority of their production.
Read at www.theguardian.com
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