The move will see the Guinness and Smirnoff manufacturer invest total of £606 million into the facility, located near Newbridge.
Officially opened today (11 May 2026), the brewery’s main focus will be on producing lagers and ales, including Hop House 13 and Smithwick’s.
Having already sunk an estimated £260 million into the facility, Diageo has now unveiled plans to build a second, adjacent brewery which will produce Guinness and Guinness 0.0 for export.
When plans were first announced in 2022, Diageo’s intention had been to free up space for production of Guinness and Guinness 0.0 at St James’s Gate, but rising demand has prompted the need to develop additional facilities.
Once the site is at capacity, it will be able to produce two million hectolitres, making it Diageo’s second-largest brewing site in Ireland, behind its flagship St James’s Gate brewery in Dublin.
“We will continue to make Guinness for Ireland, the United Kingdom and also our big American market in St James’s Gate,” said Colin O’Brien, Diageo’s head of global beer supply.
“The brewery here will support the growth of Guinness in new markets and the developing markets we have around the world.”
He continued: “We’re seeing fantastic performance of Guinness both in North America and across our other global markets. We’re really confident that with this investment, we can continue to support that growth.
“Tariffs are an issue, but we’re working through that and trying to drive the efficiencies the best we can through a new brewery here to minimise the impact of that on consumers.”
The inauguration of the Newbridge facility forms part of a near £865 million investment by Diageo into its Irish operations across the 2020s, which also include completed work at St James’s Gate and its Belfast packaging site to increase capacity and support Guinness 0.0.
Additional works are planned to push forward with the decarbonisation of St James’s Gate.
