Why St. Patrick’s Day Is Christmas For Guinness

You’ll never guess which day of the year is the biggest day of sales for Guinness.

Just kidding; you can very much guess it (it’s also up there in the title).

On St. Patrick’s Day yesterday (March 17), PJ Media used the occasion to explore some fun facts about the Dublin, Ireland-based stout company owned by Diageo (one of those facts being that, actually, only one of Guinness’ five breweries is located in its home country, while the rest are in Malaysia, Ghana, Cameroon and Nigeria), particularly related to the global holiday.

Referencing a report from Britain’s The Telegraph, the outlet notes that while the average total amount of Guinness that is imbibed worldwide on most days of the year is around 7.6 million glasses, that number nearly doubles on St. Patrick’s Day, reaching an average in excess of 13 million glasses.

PJ Media shared that the O’Neill’s chain of Irish-themed pubs in Britain expected to sell more than 71,000 pints of the famous stout yesterday, while — according to Nielsen data — in the United States, overall sales of Irish beers (including Guinness) see a rise throughout the month of March.

St. Patrick’s Day, the outlet notes, is becoming ever more important to Guinness, as its sales are otherwise on the decline, its market share being cut into in particular by the continued rise in popularity of craft beers.

“Diageo must look beyond [one-day] occasions for stout consumption,” commented Amin Alkhatib, alcoholic drinks analyst at Euromonitor International. “It must promote wider drinking occasions for the tipple and capture demand from undersold consumer groups, such as female drinkers.”