The price of a pint
You can’t get away from Guinness when you’re in Ireland. The branding for the world’s most popular stout is like wallpapaper. If there’s another stout sold in Ireland you’d be hard pressed to find any sign of it. So far, Guinness’s domination of the Irish market hasn’t led to a spike in the price of a pint. Knowing the place that pint holds in Irish society, the brass at Diageo, which owns Guinness, know better. The Netflix series about the the seamier aspects of the Guinness origin story (All those mistresses!) is a hit. Which means more episodes and possible increase in the price of a pint.
YOU’VE NOT SEEN THE LAST OF THE HOUSE OF GUINNESS
The man behind The House of Guinness on Netflix confirmed what anyone who has watched the final episode of Season One knows: There will be a Season Two.
And a Season Three and Four if Steven Knight has his way. "Yes absolutely, we are going to do this all the way to the 1960s.” So far, Netflix hasn’t confirmed but the prospect of continuing the narrative of the Guinness involvement with the cause of Irish nationalists "into the 60s" is intriguing, efven if it's kind of drunk history so far.
Those who know how many people have watched HOG since its late September release aren’t sharing that number. Netflix and the other streamers don’t do ratings the way networks do. Reviews in the US and UK have been mostly good. In Ireland it’s getting panned, but people are watching.
The pro-Guinness hype holds that the series is “a massive, long form advertisement” for Guinness that can only “increase its global appeal.” And bolster the bottom line of Diageo Inc., which owns Guinness and 200 other brands of joy juice. Guinness is the overperformer for Diageo and is valued by Bloomberg at $10 billion.
It’s great the Guinness clan is getting the Netflix treatment these days, but what’s that got to do with the price of a pint?
A lot, actually. Guinness, which has long been THE WORLD’S MOST VALUABLE IRISH BRAND, will make sure to do whatever it takes to translate ratings into profits that fund its campaign of world dominance.....selling stout and related merchandise. As demand increases, Guinness isn't likely to lower the price of a pint. Right?
Ted's in Cashel, Co.Mayo, Ireland October 10, 2025
THE PRICE OF A PINT
You can pay as much as $46.55 for a pint of Guinness at one location in Dublin. But that price includes a tour of the Guinness Brewery at St. James Gate. Elsewhere in Dublin that same pint sans tour will cost you $8 to $10. Ten years ago, that same pint in Dublin cost $5. Thirty years ago, it was $4. I’ll spare you the math. The price of a pint of Guinness is rising faster than inflation. Guinness is posting double digit profit gains annually.
In Westport, Co. Mayo, on the other side of Ireland from Dublin, your pint of Guinness is a much better deal. At Scott’s Bar & Grocery and Matt Molloy’s Pub a pint costs $6.10 (5.25 euros).
But whereas the Dublin publican can make a buck selling pints at $8 to $10, JP Scott and Matt Molloy are selling pints almost at a loss.
When they pour that $6.10 pint it’s $2 for taxes, $2 for the Guinness, $1.40 for labor and 50 cents for overhead. That leaves 20 cents profit per pint. Combine that with a decline in drinking and customer’s reluctance to drive after a couple of pints and you’ll understand the sight of so many shuttered pubs in the country. Which is why Scott’s is also a grocery store, gas station and An Post branch.
“This isn’t just about the price of a pint,” Pat Crotty said on behalf of “country pub” owners, "it's about the survival of pubs across Ireland. The reality is that small, community-based pubs are at breaking point. Without additional support, particularly in rural areas, many will simply not survive.” He’s leading a campaign called No Profit In Pints.
There’s no unified protest in Ireland of pint prices rising much faster than inflation. Just a lot of quiet grumbling when there’s no change back from a 10 euro note. The higher prices are “not enough to revolt, but enough to notice,” said one punter.
GUINNESS IS UBIQUITOUS IN IRELAND
The Guinness family may have saved Dublin in the last years of the 19th Century through the efforts of the women of the family to build public housing and provide health care to its employees. These good deeds make up a plot line in HOG. They also compensated for anti-competitive and monopolistic practices in those days that assured Guinness of its dominance today.
Great Britain didn’t get to be great by being nice. Guinness isn’t the world’s most valuable Irish brand because it played well with other brewers. That legacy survives. When I asked a bartender on a recent trip to the West of Ireland whether I could get a pint of Murphy’s or Beamish Stout instead of Guinness, he chuckled. “Maybe at the bigger places in Dublin. Or down in Cork. Around here it’s just Guinness.”
Cork, it turns out, is the only town where Guinness’s market share supremacy is challenged. Drinkers of Murphy’s and Beamish, which are brewed nearby, are called “rebels.” No one mentions that those two fine Irish stouts are brewed by Heineken.
AND IT’S NOT JUST THE PINTS
Guinness has its hand in other pockets of the tourist as well. At Moran’s Gift Shop in Westport, which is stocked full of Irish knick knacks Made in China, most of the stuff is branded by Guinness. Key chains, tee shirts, toys, glassware, you name it, it’s got Guinness on there somewhere. And it’s worse at Shannon Airport’s Duty Free where genuine Irish arts and crafts have been abandoned for more Guinness stuff.
ALREADY IN AMERICA – THE $10 PINT OF GUINNESS
The ten-buck barrier has been passed when you figure that in America, unlike in Ireland, a tip goes along with the pint. The highest average price for a pint in San Francisco is $9.35, in Las Vegas $8.70 and in Washington DC $9.10. If you’re looking for a deal, try. "country" bars in West Virginia where pints go for $5.45 or Wyoming where it’s $5.90.
Portland’s Irish pubs seem to be holding the price of a pint of Guinness to $7 or $8.