Founded in Dublin in 1759, it’s hard to think of a beer with more cultural cache than Guinness. With an estimated 1.8 billion pints sold every year — that’s about 10 million glasses daily — the Irish stout is undoubtedly one of the most popular beers on the planet. But what many don’t know about the brewer is that it also produces a lager that, once upon a time, was just as popular as the brand’s beloved nitro stout.
Introduced in 1960, Harp Lager was created as a means of competing in a burgeoning lager market in the U.K. and Ireland. As cask beer was growing less popular with consumers, the beer was originally launched in bottles, though a draft version of the brew was introduced just a few years later. Immediately the beer was a hit and Guinness needed to expand operations if demand was to be fulfilled. By 1963, there was a coalition of U.K.- and Ireland-based brewers working in tandem to produce, market, and distribute Harp Lager. Just over a decade later, the lager was one of the best-selling beers in Nigeria. But its success couldn’t last forever.
Originally manufactured in Dundalk, a town close to the border between Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland, Harp remains popular in Northern Ireland to this day. However, despite once being a household name in international markets, Harp Lager has been mostly relegated to the shadows, only enjoyed by the few in the know who live close to a supplier.
Here are eight things you should know about Harp Lager.
-
Harp Lager was created to compete with other types of beer growing more popular in England and Ireland.
Up until the late 1950s, Guinness packaged its beers in wooden casks before shipping them off to bars across Ireland and the U.K. However, following World War II, there was a sharp decline in demand for cask ale, with drinkers instead turning their attention toward bottled beers — bottled lagers, to be specific. In “The Guinness Book of Guinness,” Dr. Arthur Hughes, a member of Guinness’s senior management team in the 1950s, recalls 1955 being a particularly hot summer, with British drinkers clamoring for refreshing European lagers to beat the heat. The following year, Hughes says, the idea of crafting a Guinness lager was discussed at a management conference, but the decision to fully pursue the idea was not made until 1958. At that point, it was decided that Guinness would craft a blonde lager and package it exclusively in bottles as a means of attracting this new sect of drinkers.
-
There’s a reason the beer isn’t called ‘Guinness Lager.’
For the entirety of its 266-year history, Guinness has striven to position its stout as the stout. As such, when the decision to brew a lager was made, the brewery knew calling it “Guinness Lager” had the potential to muddy this message they had spent so long building. Other potential names included Atlas, Alpine, Alpha, Cresta, and Dolphin, though Harp was eventually chosen as a reference to the Brian Boru harp, the national emblem of Ireland and Guinness’s trademark symbol. The name, along with the symbol proudly displayed on the label, further differentiated the lager from those produced on the continent and served as a point of pride for those who wanted to drink locally crafted beers.
-
Guinness had to find a new brewery to make Harp Lager…
When Harp Lager was being thought up, Guinness operated two breweries: one at the historic St. James’s Gate in Dublin and the other at Park Royal in London. The Dublin brewery was immediately ruled out as a possible brewing site due to fears over potential yeast contamination with the stout. That opened up the Park Royal campus, but the brand was concerned about alarming competition in the area, so they opted to find an entirely new facility to produce Harp. They landed on the Great Northern Brewery in Dundalk, County Louth, located just a few miles south of the Northern Ireland border. The lager’s first test brews took place in February 1960, and by June of that year, the first tanks of “pale gold sparkling lager” were filled.
-
…and then needed to find a few more.
By the end of 1960, Guinness had impressively offloaded every last drop of Harp Lager brewed that year. The sell-out prompted Lord Iveagh, a chairman for Guinness at the time, to announce that Harp would be expanding into the U.K. in 1961, with more markets expected the following year. The brand hoped to achieve these expansions through partnerships with English breweries like Courage, Barclay, Simonds & Co (now simply Courage Ltd.), which managed to come to fruition. In the spring of 1961, Courage announced that it would be refitting its Alton-based facility to produce lagers. Scottish & Newcastle also hopped on board, giving Guinness access to the Red Tower lager brewery in Manchester to craft Harp Lager. Together with Bass and Mitchells & Butlers, Courage, Scottish & Newcastle, and Guinness collectively made up Harp Lager Ltd, a consortium dedicated to brewing and marketing the beer.
-
The brand recruited the help of a German brewmaster to assist with the creation of the lager.
Given the popularity of continental lagers at the time, Guinness thought a German-style lager would have the best shot at success in Ireland and the U.K. But it needed a credible German brewer behind it if it were to stand any real chance. So, the brand recruited the help of Dr. Hermann Muender of Gaffel am Dom, a brewery in Cologne. Dr. Muender knew nothing about Ireland, but came from a brewing family and immediately got to work overhauling the extensive brewing facility and testing pilot recipes that were later served to patrons at a nearby pub.
-
Harp was marketed in a few unconventional ways.
Advertising and marketing have always been a strong suit for Guinness, from the iconic “Surfer” commercial to the emblematic toucan. When marketing Harp Lager, though, the brand took a somewhat different approach. The beer was originally positioned as “the cool blonde lager,” a slogan that appeared on printed ads alongside a bottle and the occasional beautiful blonde woman. This prompted the creation of the Guinness Harp Lager Beauty Competition, which included the Miss Harp contest for young girls and the Glowing Harp Competition for women. In addition to sponsoring beauty pageants, Guinness also delved into the world of sports, sponsoring events like the Harp International Cycling Grand Prix and the Harp Lager Challenge Belt in boxing.
-
The beer was popular in Nigeria.
Guinness has been exceptionally popular in Nigeria since exports of the beer started arriving there in the early 1900s. In 1962, the first Guinness brewery outside Ireland and the U.K. opened in Ikeja to assist with the brand’s production of its 7.5 percent ABV Foreign Extra Stout, a Nigerian favorite. Just 12 years later, Guinness opened another brewery in Benin to produce Harp Lager, with a third brewery added to the campus for stouts. In 1982, Guinness added another Nigerian brewing facility in Ogba built exclusively to brew Harp. Over the next few decades, Harp would continue to grow in popularity, becoming one of Nigeria’s top-selling lager brands. In 2011, the Benin and Ogba breweries were expanded to meet the growing demand for four Guinness SKUS: Foreign Extra Stout, Guinness Extra Smooth, Malta Guinness, and, of course, Harp Lager. Soon after that, however, things started taking a turn. By 2019, sales of Harp Lager had reportedly fallen by double digits, and production of the beer was completely halted in Nigeria. In September 2024, Diageo sold its 58.02 percent share of Guinness Nigeria to Tolaram.
-
The beer’s popularity took a sharp turn in the 1980s.
By the start of the 1970s, Harp Lager had amassed approximately 25 percent of the lager market in the U.K., but the highs were short-lived. Come the 1980s, beer competition was fierce and beer lovers were no longer interested in cheap, low-ABV, domestic beers. They wanted premium strength, they wanted foreign exports, and most of all, they wanted excitement — Harp Lager was none of those things. Stateside, domestic macro lagers like Coors Light, Bud Light, and Miller Lite were skyrocketing in popularity, decimating demand for imported light beer. Guinness continued to try to manufacture demand through the ‘80s and ‘90s with flashy television ads and slogans like “Time for a cool, sharp Harp,” but was unable to regain any momentum. Smaller and smaller batches of Harp continued to be brewed at the Great Northern Brewery until the Dundalk facility was decommissioned in 2013 and transformed into Great Northern Distilling. Harp Lager production was transferred to Dublin’s St. James’s Gate Brewery where it continues today.
