Guinness and the 9,000-year Lease

On This Day in History: December 31, 1759

Sometimes people end up regretting signing a property lease, but not Arthur Guinness. On December 31, 1759, he signed a 9,000-year lease for the abandoned St. James Gate Brewery in Dublin to brew his namesake beer. The cost per annum was set at £45, about $62 U.S. a year.

--On This Day in History Shit Went Down: December 31, 1759--

Guinness was born in 1725, and at the age of 27 he inherited £100 from his godfather, about $4,000 U.S. today. Rather than go on an epic bender, he decided to invest in future benders by starting a brewery about ten miles from Dublin in the town of Leixlip. In 1759 he left his younger brother in charge in Leixlip and made the deal of the millennium (deals that didn’t involve colonization and coercion, I mean) to lease the four-acre brewery at St. James Gate. A decade later Guinness began exporting his famous brew out of the country, sending half a dozen barrels across the Irish Sea to Great Britain.

Guinness soon focused on darker beers—porters—referring to them as “stout” based on their higher alcohol strength. There was Single Stout, a stronger Double Stout, and also a foreign stout for export. The name stout eventually evolved to describe the beer’s body and color rather than its alcohol content. Where I live the typical beer is 5% alcohol, and I was surprised to learn that the Guinness of today is actually only 4.2% alcohol, and has fewer calories than you would imagine, considering drinking one feels like you just ate a big barley sandwich.

Guinness is good shit, and the world agreed. By 1838 it was the largest brewery in Ireland, and three decades later the largest in the world, cranking out over a million barrels of tasty suds a year. Eventually it lost its position as largest brewer in the world, but it remains the largest brewer of stout. Also, the 9000-year lease has been relegated to a curiosity, as it is no longer valid. It was a victim of its own success. The brewery grew so massive the four acres weren’t even close to being enough room to meet the international demand for the company’s products, so the company bought the land, along with a lot of other surrounding land to continue its expansion. This includes lots of nearby housing for brewery employees and offices.

Arthur Guinness died in 1803 at the age of 77, but he left a lasting legacy. Today, the Guinness Storehouse—which used to be the brewery’s fermentation plant—is the brewery visitor’s center. Seven stories tall, it acts as a museum of the rich history of the rich beer. It is Dublin’s most popular tourist attraction, having over 20 million visitors since it opened in 2000. The original signed lease from 1759 is on display embedded under glass on the main floor of the storehouse.

Happy New Year. Please get fucked up responsibly.

Those who cannot remember the past need a history teacher who says “fuck” a lot. Get both volumes of On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down.