Management errors see brewery bite the dust

Iremember, as a young journalist in the 1960s, the excitement that bubbled the length of Fleet Street when Draught Guinness first arrived in Britain.

I hurried to a pub for my first taste and had to queue for a pint, standing in the company of fellow hacks and inky printers.

Before the development of Draught Guinness, most British drinkers of Irish stout had to make do with a bottled version.

That was no hardship: bottled Guinness in those days had a yeast sediment and was a rich, dark delight.

But the draught version was a revelation.

It was served from a curious oblong container known as "the iron lung".

It had three compartments: one for stout, a second for carbon dioxide and a third for nitrogen.

Draught Guinness was the first "nitro-keg" beer, developed 20 or 30 years before other brewers started to use the system.

I'm not a fan of nitro-keg beers, which tend to be bland and lacking in hop aroma, as well as being served too cold for my taste.

But Draught Guinness, due to its roasted and bitter character, has been able to withstand the twin attack of CO2 and nitrogen.

The appeal of Draught Guinness has been not only the taste but also what marketing people call, rather pompously, the "theatre of the pour".

As I neared the bar for that first taste all those years ago I marvelled as the beer hit the glass in a brown flurry then slowly and miraculously separated into white head and jet-black body.

Some clever barmen even managed, by manipulating glass and beer tap, to create the famous smile in the foam.

Before the advent of nitro-keg Draught Guinness, draught stout in the Irish Republic was served by a system known as "high cask and low cask".

Casks in pubs were stored on two levels.

The top casks contained stout that had been blended with unfermented beer and yeast: the beer started to re-ferment in cask and built up a high level of natural carbonation.

The stout in the casks below was beer that had finished fermentation and was less lively.

Barmen had to mix each pint from both casks, with the stout from the top casks giving the beer its thick and inviting head of foam.

While I am a passionate lover of cask beer, I can understand why Guinness developed the keg version, especially as Ireland has no tied trade and the brewers have little control over the finished product.

Draught Guinness for the British market was brewed at the Park Royal plant in north west London, which Diageo said last week it planned to close, transferring all production to Dublin.

It's tragic that this magnificent Art Deco brewery, built in 1938, faces the axe.

The decision to build Park Royal was as much political as economic.

When the Fiana Fail party, led by Eamon de Valera, the architect of Irish independence, came to power in 1932, it refused to pay compensation to former Anglo-Irish landowners.

The British Government retaliated by placing high tariffs on Irish goods exported to this country.

To avoid the price of exported stout rising steeply in Britain, Guinness decided to build a brewery in London to supply the domestic market.

The success of the beer here was aided by a brilliant advertising campaign, devised in part by the famous crime writer Dorothy L Sayers, using such now famous slogans as "Guinness is good for you" and "Guinness gives you strength".

The main reason for the decision to close Park Royal is not declining sales in Britain and Ireland but the fact that Diageo is more concerned with such core brands as Smirnoff and Johnnie Walker.

The decline of Guinness is small and could be turned around by some smart promotions but Diageo doesn't seem interested.

Recent TV commercials for Guinness have been hard to fathom, with the brand name difficult to detect.

And so another great brewery bites the dust, the victim of mismanagement rather that consumer indifference.

I shall have to live off the memory of that first pint of Draught Guinness in a Fleet Street pub and the fading smile in the foam.