FDBusiness.com

Diageo has opened the new home of Guinness in America – the Open Gate Brewery & Barrel House in Maryland. The creation of a world-class brewery, barrel house and visitor centre, and development of packaging and warehousing operations has generated more than 200 jobs and represents an investment by Diageo of approximately $90 million in the Maryland project.

The Open Gate Brewery & Barrel House is the first Guinness brewing operation on US soil in more than 60 years and is home to two custom-built brewhouses – a 10-barrel brewhouse and a 100-hectoliter brewhouse, both of which are set up to brew and ferment different styles. The 10-barrel system is the small-batch experimental brewery, while the 100-hectolitre system will initially brew Guinness Blonde for national distribution, along with new Guinness beers created for the US market.

The first part of the brewery’s name takes inspiration from the Guinness Open Gate Brewery in Dublin – where the company has experimented in beer for more than a century. The second part of the name, ‘Barrel House’, is a nod to the long history of Guinness brewers maturing beer in wood barrels, a tradition this new brewery intends to continue. In addition, the space was once home to a historic whiskey distillery, so the site already boasts a venerable heritage of barrel-aging.

Using a pre-existing structure for the project, as opposed to starting from scratch with a green field development, was a priority for Guinness to maintain parent company Diageo’s commitment to environmental sustainability. Guinness has also implemented measures to reduce the overall electric consumption and water usage at the site, while utilizing recycled elements for the build, along with low volatile organic compound (VOC) materials and paints, to accent the building.