Today, the Guinness Storehouse is Ireland's most popular tourist attration and the Archives of the building tell and preserve its history. According to the Archives:
In 1759, at the age of 34, Arthur Guinness signed a lease for the St. James’s Gate Brewery, Dublin. He leased the brewery for 9000 years at an annual rent of £45. The brewery was only 4 acres in size, disused, and had little brewing equipment. Despite this, Arthur quickly built up a successful trade and by 1769 he had begun to export his beer to England. Arthur Guinness began by brewing ale at St. James’s Gate. In the 1770s, he began brewing ‘porter’, a new type of English beer, invented in London in 1722 by a brewer named Ralph Harwood. Porter was different from ale because it was brewed using roasted barley, giving the beer a dark ruby colour and rich aroma. Arthur’s porter was successful and in 1799 he decided to stop brewing ale altogether, and concentrate on porter alone. Arthur Guinness brewed different types of porter to suit different tastes, including a special export beer called ‘West India Porter’. This beer is still brewed today and is now known as GUINNESS Foreign Extra Stout. It accounts for 45% of all GUINNESS sales globally and is popular in Asia, Africa and the Caribbean. By the time Arthur died in 1803, he had built a successful brewing business, with a promising export trade.
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