Guinness Announces Plans For a New Open Gate Concept Brewery in Baltimore County, Maryland

On January 31, 2017, the Diageo Beer Company USA announced that they are making plans to bring the famous Guinness Storehouse/Open Gate concept to the United States for the first time in 63 years, specifically to the tiny unincorporated village of Relay in Baltimore County, Maryland. This brand new microbrewery will be the home of specific beers made under the Guinness name for the American market and will feature a visitor center, taproom and tasting room, similar in style to the location at St. James Gate in Dublin, Ireland, where their original stout will continued to be brewed.

As currently planned, the company would build a mid-sized Guinness brewery and a Guinness visitor experience with an innovation microbrewery at the company’s existing Relay, Maryland site. This new brewing capability and consumer experience, combined with a packaging and warehousing operation, would bring the company’s investment in Relay to approximately $50 million. The new brewery would be a home for new Guinness beers created for the US market, while the iconic Guinness Stouts will continue to be brewed at St. James’s Gate in Dublin, Ireland. Visitors would be able to tour the working brewery, sample experimental beers brewed on-site at the taproom, and purchase Guinness merchandise at the retail store.

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