Guinness Foreign Extra Stout: История и производство

Stout produced by the Guinness Brewery

Guinness Foreign Extra Stout (FES) is a stout produced by the Guinness Brewery, an Irish brewing company owned by Diageo, a drinks multinational. First brewed by Guinness in 1801, FES was designed for export, and is more heavily hopped than Guinness Draught and Extra Stout, which gives it a more bitter taste, and typically has a higher alcohol content (at around 7.5% ABV). The extra hops were intended as a natural preservative for the long journeys the beer would take by ship. FES is the Guinness variant that is most commonly found in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean, and it accounts for almost half of Guinness sales worldwide. Over four million hectolitres of the beer were sold in Africa in 2011, where Diageo intend to grow the product into the continent's highest selling beer. Guinness Flavour Extract, a dehydrated, hopped wort extract made from barley malt and roasted barley, is used for overseas production of the stout. The syrup is shipped from Ireland, where it is added at the ratio of 1:49 to locally brewed pale beer. In most overseas markets, Guinness Flavour Extract (GFE) is blended with locally brewed beer to produce FES. FES was marketed in Nigeria as "gives you power" in the 1960s. This was updated for 1999–2006 with the Michael Power campaign, which aired across Africa.

Guinness West India Porter, the direct predecessor of Foreign Extra Stout, was first exported from the St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin in 1801. The product was formulated for Irish immigrant workers in the Caribbean. The beer was brewed solely in the cooler months between October and April in order to reduce acidification, and was matured in large wooden vats for up to two years, which gave the finished product greater stability. To survive the long journey overseas, which was then taken by ship, it was brewed with extra hops and a higher alcohol content, which acted as natural preservatives for the beer. The 1801 recipe included 73 per cent pale malt and 27 per cent brown malt. The first recorded shipment of the beer to the United States was in 1817. The beer was renamed Foreign Extra Stout from around 1849 onwards. The first recorded exports to South East Asia began in the 1860s. FES accounted for around five per cent of all Guinness production at the turn of the twentieth century, with two thirds destined for Australia and the United States, where it was largely used as a medicinal product. Guinness export sales were mostly to British and Irish expatriates before 1920. By 1962, Nigeria had become the largest export market for Guinness, with around 100,000 barrels exported to the country every year. This led the company to build a brewery in Ikeja in western Nigeria to supply the demand; it was only the third brewery in the company's history. The brewery cost over £2 million, had a 150,000 barrel capacity, and was 60 per cent owned by Guinness Nigeria, 25 per cent by the United Africa Company with the remaining shares held by local Nigerian interests. Historically a small proportion of Guinness production, it was this success, especially in Africa but also in Asia, that allowed FES to grow into a 4.5 million hectolitre brand. A new bottle design was debuted in Malaysia in 2005, and later rolled out worldwide. In 2013, FES received a packaging redesign in Africa and other selected markets, with a gold foil top and a new label.

The Irish version of FES is brewed with pale malt, 25 per cent flaked barley (for head retention and body) and 10 per cent roasted barley, the latter being what gives the beer its dark hue. It uses the bitter Galena, Nugget and Target hop varieties which have undergone an isomerized kettle extract process. The beer is force carbonated. It provides extremely poor flocculation and produces relatively high levels of diacetyl in the finished beer. In 2003, production of GFE was relocated from St James's Gate to the former Cherry's brewery in Mary Street, Waterford, but in 2013 production returned to St James's. In addition, it is produced under licence in 39 other countries. Diageo has brewing arrangements with the Castel Group to license brew and distribute Guinness in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Gambia, Gabon, Ivory Coast, Togo, Benin, Burkina Faso, Chad, Mali and Guinea. Amber malt continued to be added to the grist until 1940.

Foreign Extra Stout constitutes 45 per cent of total Guinness sales worldwide. FES is produced at thirteen breweries in Africa. Guinness in Nigeria is made with heavily roasted sorghum or maize that has been locally sourced. Some Nigerian versions also contain wheat. The switch from malted barley was made in 1986 when the Nigerian government briefly banned imports of the grain. The Nigerian breweries use high gravity brewing techniques to ferment sorghum and pale malt to 1090 OG. Diageo have also confirmed that the carbonation levels are "different" from the Irish brewed product.

The brewing of FES has taken place at Sierra Leone Brewery since October 1967. In Ghana, FES is brewed in Kumasi by Guinness Ghana Breweries, which is 50.5 per cent owned by Diageo. GFE is mixed with a locally brewed sorghum lager, but it differs from the Nigerian version in that it contains no wheat and has a higher proportion of roast barley. In Ghana, the product is believed to have medicinal properties, strengthening the blood and improving circulation. In 2003, a 5.5% ABV, lightly nitrogenated variant of FES was introduced in Ghana called Guinness Extra Smooth.

Sales of Guinness in South East Asia amounted to over £100 million in 2012 13. The Malaysian variant is distributed throughout most of South East Asia. The brew was reduced in ABV from 8 to 6.8% in 2008, and further reduced to 5.5% ABV from 2016, in response to changes in alcohol duty. Malaysia is the largest Asian market for Guinness, where, in 2012, the brand grew by between 10 and 15 per cent. In Singapore, FES is brewed and distributed by Asia Pacific Breweries. The beer was again withdrawn from the UK market, returning in 2003 to cater for the increasing African diaspora. The British market is supplied with both the Irish and the Nigerian brewed variants of the beer, the latter of which has annual sales of £2 million. Official imports of FES into the US were resumed in 2010, following a resurgent interest in craft beer; this was after a period of grey imports, predominantly for African and Caribbean expatriates. This was updated for 1999–2006 with the Michael Power campaign, which aired all over the continent. Saatchi continues to market FES in the rest of the world.

The beer is ranked highly on beer rating websites. Garrett Oliver notes its refreshing qualities and "distinctive acidic edge". On the other hand, it has been criticised by British journalist Tony Naylor as being "more about treacly, boozy warmth" than "complex flavour".