Excerpt: "Guinness and the Storytellers"
Art mirrors life. Here's some of the story of how it mirrored Guinness.
© 2025 Michael Villa. Published by First Pour Press. All rights reserved.
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GUINNESS AND THE STORYTELLERS
Writers drink it. Artists reference it. Musicians toast with it. Not because they’re told to—but because it belongs. Guinness doesn’t chase attention. It lingers in the background, steady as a rhythm. You won’t always notice it, but when you do, it feels like it was always meant to be there.
That presence wasn’t built by ad campaigns or corporate slogans—not at first. In its earliest decades of growth, Guinness didn’t advertise at all. It didn’t need to. The company relied on its bottlers and merchants to spread the brand. These independent agents distributed the beer, often under their own labels, and handled the sales pitch themselves. For a time, Guinness was one of the most consumed drinks in Ireland—without most people even realizing they were drinking Guinness. The liquid had a reputation long before the brand caught up.
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