Credit: Far Out / Guinness / Luke Stackpoole
When you visit London, there are some things you simply can’t ignore, many of which have become so associated with the city that they’ve become a stereotype. Whether that’s red phone boxes, teens on bikes doing wheelies down Oxford Street or increasingly, Guinness.
Yes, that Guinness, the famous Irish stout, once strongly associated with Irish identity and working-class boozers, now dominates swathes of London’s drinking culture. What was once a pint has become a performance, a statement, and let’s be honest, a problem. The fetishisation of Guinness in London isn’t just about taste. In fact, taste feels increasingly secondary. In a city more focused on style than any other in the country, it’s about aesthetics.
There are a number of stands to the ‘alco-colonisation’ of Guinness in the British capital. Firstly, wider social trends beyond London, that have seen a pint of the black stuff transform from stuffy old man drink into the pint of the masses. Personally, I’m more than partial to a drop, but so much of its popularity isn’t actually about the taste. With that jet black body and creamy white head, it looks incredible, and those looks have seen it gain status in social media-led Blighty.
Social media is arguably the place that helped Guinness explode in the UK. We’ve seen ‘splitting the G’ like a fresher on their rugby society induction grip the nation, and perfectly capture the shift in the brand’s image. Then there’s the topic of Guinness pint reviews. I’m sorry, lads, but it tastes the same everywhere, with only the cleanliness of the pipes and freshness of the beer making a real difference, and don’t even get me started on the glasses, because, unless it’s a plastic, it really doesn’t matter.
It’s walking into London’s pubs that you see the real problem. This elevation of Guinness, as well as the rise of huge, global beverage companies, has led to a very limited selection of taps and pints on offer. A city that once offered variety and locality has been flattened into a monoculture, and even some of the craft breweries, like Camden, have been sucked in.
Credit: CAMRA
London was once defined by its boroughs. Walking across these invisible boundaries saw you enter new domains with different styles, pints, music choices and clientele. That’s been a gradual decline across generations, but has sped up since I started drinking, and now we’re left with one beer culture across the whole city. Guinness is a huge international brand now, and you can’t fault people outside the Emerald Isle for drinking it, but it is strange how it’s become synonymous with the UK and London in particular.
Stout sales have increased 40% year on year, and Guinness hit a 17.5% market share in pubs in 2025, with over two million pints of it sold daily, and within London, one in every ten pints is a Guinness, making it the most popular pint. Pubs like The Devonshire have sprung up, and now patrons crowd the streets of Denman Street vaping and splitting the G in the smoking area. With its old-school taps and barman constantly starting off pints, it’s become optimised for the quick, city pour.
The title of the best Guinness in London is a hotly debated one, but The Devonshire is one of the principal contenders. Other frontrunners are Soho’s The Toucan, as well as The Auld Shillelagh, Skehan’s Freehouse and the Guinea Grill. Guinness itself opened up the Guinness Open Gate Brewery in the heart of tourist London, Covent Garden, furthering the alignment of this Irish staple and the UK.
The adoption of Guinness as a national drink is nothing new, with the drink selling huge numbers in Nigeria, but it is particularly odd how it has gripped London, a city that has had a long and sometimes difficult relationship with Ireland. With its famous and intricate two-part pouring method, and the history of the brand, it feels authentic and ‘proper’ drinking. In a city as fast, ever-changing and transient as London, it feels slower and more rooted in tradition, but the more it’s fetishised, the more it drifts from what made it so authentic to start with.
As part of a wider trend of experience commodification in London, from coffee to cocktails, we’re seeing everything more carefully curated and branded. The consumption of the drink, too, feels performative, with people ordering it seemingly because it’s the right choice, not because they like it. There’s nothing wrong with Guinness; it’s a great drink that has its place in London and the world over, but it needs to be back in its proper place, as one option in the local, not the defining part of the city’s drinking culture. We’ve reduced the rich, varied pub culture of the capital to one single beverage, and that’s not healthy, even for one as iconic and satisfying as a Guinness.
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