Stockpiling and splitting the G: Pubs warn Guinness limit may ‘cripple’ them

“If I can’t get it in it will probably cripple me.”

That’s what Steven Crosbie says about the current issues affecting Guinness supplies. As the landlord of the Liffey, an Irish pub in Liverpool, Guinness is his top seller.

Steven usually gets 12 50-litre barrels a week from his main distributor. But he says that on Wednesday, he was told he could only get one barrel this week because of allocation limits imposed by Diageo, which owns Guinness.

Landlords across the country say that their distributors have been allocating them less Guinness than usual, to make sure there’s enough stock to meet demand over Christmas.

“Over the past month we have seen exceptional consumer demand for Guinness in GB,” a Diageo spokesperson said. “We have maximised supply and we are working proactively with our customers to manage the distribution to trade as efficiently as possible.”

Enda Murray, landlord of three pubs in London, says that his supplier has restricted his supply of Guinness to one or two kegs per pub – just 10% of what they need. He says he’s managed to ring-fence some from another supplier and should have enough “for the next week or two”.

Pub managers say they’ve been scrambling to secure supplies at reasonable prices.

“It’s been hard work,” says Shaun Jenkinson, operations manager at Katie O’Brien’s. He says he’s not sure whether the chain’s seven Irish pubs will have enough Guinness to make it through the weekend.

Other operators he’s spoken to “really are on their bare bones,” as some ran out of Guinness on Friday night, he says.

Some landlords say that pubs have been “panic buying” Guinness. Patrick Fitzsimons, landlord of the Faltering Fullback in Finsbury Park, London, says this “has dried up the market even further.” He says his pub has a small cellar which means it needs continuous deliveries – he can’t stockpile like others.

Landlords say that the uniqueness of Guinness means it’s hard to provide an alternative.

“Guinness has a very niche market,” Enda says. “A lot of pubs don’t sell other stouts.”

Some pubs say that people had been stocking up on Murphy’s as an alternative to Guinness but they claim that has led to Murphy’s limiting allocations, too.

Guinness sales have been on the rise in 2024. Volumes of Guinness sold in kegs were up by more than a fifth between July and October compared to the same period last year, bucking a slight decline in overall beer sales, according to data from food and drink research company CGA.

While a Diageo spokesperson said there has been “exceptional demand” over the past three weeks, Enda notes that Guinness sales have grown significantly since the pandemic in his pub.

“We’ve seen a massive upshot in young people especially drinking Guinness,” he says. He credits this to “the trend of splitting the G, all the Guinness influencers, everyone seems to want to be a Guinness influencer”.

“Splitting the G” is a trend whereby drinkers try take a big enough first swig of Guinness so that the stout comes to halfway down the “G” in the word “Guinness” on pint glass.

And as more people are drinking non-alcoholic beer, sales of the zero-alcohol beer Guinness 0.0 are strong too – it now accounts for nearly 3% of total Guinness volume globally.

The limits on Guinness supplies come at a particularly busy time of year for pubs, which see large gatherings for Christmas and New Year celebrations.

Steven from the Liffey says that if pubs do run out of Guinness, he expects people to go from “bar to bar” in search of places that are still stocking it.

Still, not all landlords are worried about supply restrictions. Ashley English, one of the landlords at the Kings Head in Docklow, Herefordshire, says that his wholesaler hadn’t placed any restrictions on him because he only orders one or two barrels a week anyway. He says he is “not too concerned” about running out.

And Bryan Fitzsimons, landlord of Skehans in Nunhead, London, says he isn’t worried about selling out because he has multiple suppliers and was able to secure some in advance.

The BBC understands that the firm is still working at a 100% production capacity and allocation limits just affect Great Britain.

A Diageo spokesperson told BBC News NI that it would make its planned deliveries across Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland “without disruption”.

Patrick, at the Faltering Fullback, says he’s worried he’ll run out of Guinness by Wednesday, but said he has managed to secure a supply of Camden Stout as an alternative.

“Hopefully customers will realise that there’s more than just Guinness on the market,” he says.