Guinness Targets Luxury Segment With New “Guinness The 1759”

Diageo Guinness USA will climb the pricing ladder with next month’s launch of a new beer called Guinness The 1759. Rolling out nationwide November 1, Guinness The 1759 was created to commemorate the year Arthur Guinness established the storied brand, signing a 9,000-year lease for the St. James’s Gate brewery in Dublin. The limited-edition brew is packaged in 750-ml. bottles, and it marks the first expression in the new Guinness Signature Series, which will debut a new commemorative beer each year. It also constitutes the first Guinness foray into the ultra-premium beer segment, according to Guinness brand director Doug Campbell.

“Guinness The 1759 is tapping into what we believe is a pretty interesting space—the emerging luxury beer category, which is geared toward sharing a bottle with a couple of people, special occasions and gifting for the holidays,” says Campbell, adding that The 1759 will have a suggested retail price of $34.99 a 750-ml.

The 1759 is an amber ale brewed with traditional beer malt as well as peated whisky malt typically used to produce Scotch and Irish whiskies, which Campbell says lends a “smoke character” to the beer. Just 90,000 bottles of the 9%-abv label were produced, with the vast majority reserved for the U.S. market.

The 1759’s launch comes as part of a major innovation effort in the U.S., where Guinness was up 1% to 14.3 million (2.25-gallon) cases last year, according to Impact Databank. In 2011, Diageo Guinness USA introduced Guinness Black Lager ($8.49 a six-pack) nationwide, and earlier this year the company debuted Guinness Blonde American Lager ($8.99 a six-pack), the first offering in the new Guinness Discovery Series. In July, Diageo Guinness USA president Tom Looney told SND that the brand’s U.S. strategy would shift to one similar to that of Johnnie Walker Scotch, “with variants under the brand umbrella offering different consumer experiences.”

Tagged : beer, Diageo, Diageo-Guinness, Guinness

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