Why stout is back in fashion: trends in beer and cider 2025

Published on The Grocer

Stout sales are surging as Gen Z discovers dark beer and designer Guinness sweaters sell for £890 a pop. How did stout find its cool?

Forget champagne. The fashion world’s favourite booze has changed considerably. “I’ve always been obsessed with Guinness,” said designer Jonathan Anderson at the launch of JW Anderson’s 2025 spring collection at Milan Fashion Week in June. “I think they [Guinness] are still today one of the greatest advertisers and I liked the idea of using their amazing graphics. I’ve always wanted to be able to show some of it, because in fashion we think we are so radical but, actually, they were way before all of that.”

Hence the troop of models that sashayed down Milan’s catwalk wearing Guinness-branded T-shirts, sweatshirts and knitwear last June (pictured above). The T-shirts are now on JW Anderson’s website for £160 a pop, the jumpers are £650 and the merino wool sweaters are £890. Of course, this doesn’t mean supermodels have all swapped champers for the black stuff. But it suggests Guinness has made stout – first brewed for 18th century manual workers and long the beer of choice of raucous rugby fans – cool again.

Data backs up that suggestion. In a £6.9bn beer and cider category down 0.7% in value and 3.3% in volume, stout is the only segment in growth. Its value’s risen 8.4% on volumes up 11.8%, Guinness has had the greatest absolute value growth of any beer or cider. It’s up £36.3m, having shifted an extra 9.6 million litres [NIQ 52 w/e 25 January 2025].

How has it done that? How are other stout brands performing? And what can brands in the wider category learn from Guinness?

A look back at past issues of The Grocer’s annual Britain’s Biggest Alcohol Brands reports reveals just how much Guinness’ fortunes have changed. In 2014, it stood at number 26 in the ranking on value down 0.9% to £91.4m [NIQ 52 w/e 26 April 2014]. In 2024 it was in 20th place and its value had more than doubled [NIQ 52 w/e 20 April 2024]. It will very likely be higher in this year’s ranking.

“This is something that’s been decades in the making,” says Guinness marketing director Anna MacDonald. “There was a perception that Guinness was for rugby lads. People said: ‘I really like Guinness but it’s for people like that and not for people like me’.”

That needed to change. So owner Diageo has focused on innovation – such as Guinness Nitrosurge and the zero-alcohol Guinness 0.0 – and shouting about the beer’s quality and heritage to new audiences in new media channels.

“We had become quite focused on where we channelled our investment, and a lot of that was around big rugby tournaments and St Patrick’s Day,” MacDonald says. “People drink beer every day of the year. Therefore you have to be in a 365-day-a-year mindset.”

Celebrity sells stout

Digital and experiential – including the forthcoming Guinness microbrewery in central London – are now a bigger part of the marketing mix. Endorsements from celebrities such as Olivia Rodrigo and Kim Kardashian have had a huge impact, as has the social media trend of “splitting the G” – taking a big enough first glug from a pint so the line between the beer and head bisects the branding on the glass.

“How people interact with brands and how they consume content has changed. In the old days, you could have put a TV ad on and reached 70% of your audience if you bought the right spots. That’s very hard to do now,” says MacDonald.

There’s also been a concerted effort to widen Guinness’ appeal in terms of drinkers and occasions. Sporting partnerships have been expanded to include the Women’s Six Nations and Women’s Super League football, while user-generated content has become a bigger part of the online strategy.

“Having this community-first, social-first mindset allows you be more inclusive,” says MacDonald.

Enlisting content creators has helped make the brand’s marketing and social feeds more “representative of the diversity of people that enjoy it”, she adds.

Many would say Guinness had to step up, given its years of stagnant sales and growing competition. Perhaps the most memorable challenge came in 2016, when BrewDog launched milk stout Jet Black Heart. Its online video parodied Guinness’ acclaimed surfer ad, featuring BrewDog founders James Watt and Martin Dickie as a pantomime horse.

The launch was an “act of revenge” in response to Diageo putting pressure on the British Institute of Innkeeping to withdraw an award the BrewDog had won at a 2012. “Big beer advertising is bollocks,” Watt said. “If you have to spend millions on ad campaigns to get people to drink your beer, the brewing is probably being neglected.”

“We would have alienated the whole category overnight because Guinness is famous for its quality and its heritage. What we’ve tried to do is bring BrewDog’s tone through with slogans like ‘Toucan Play at that Game’ and ‘What if it’s Better?’.”

Black Heart is now the UK’s second-biggest stout in the supermarkets. Value sales have grown 54.7% to £11.6m on volumes up 53.2%. Not that the market leader should be too worried. Black Heart’s sales are equivalent to only 7.7% of Guinness Draught’s value.

“It’s difficult to enter a category of one with a completely different proposition and expect customers to come to it,” adds Harrison. Black Heart is therefore “very similar” to Guinness, but not “a complete copy”, he adds. “It’s slightly darker if you pop them side by side, and there’s a slightly more chocolatey flavour to it.”

Others are also aping Guinness. AB InBev’s Camden Town Brewery, for instance, launched Stout into Sainsbury’s in November 2023, billing it as a “more refreshing version of a traditional stout”. And Heineken UK has just relaunched Murphy’s Irish Stout in retail, claiming on-trade sales surged 632% last December when Guinness stocks briefly ran low across the UK.

But tempting drinkers away from Guinness in grocery, where the brand accounts for 89.4% of stout value sales, is more of a challenge than in pubs. “At shelf, you’ve got no bartender to recommend a local alternative,” says Giles Mountford, head of beer brands at Badger Beers brewer Hall & Woodhouse. “It’s just a wall of Guinness.”

Competing on price is one way to cut through, of course. “We launched at £1 a can on the four-pack initially to drive trial, and then we put that promotion on to the eight and 10-packs,” says BrewDog’s Harrison of the pricing strategy for Black Heart.

Although things have moved on since launch, the brew has remained around 9% cheaper on a pence per average litre basis than Guinness Draught.

“We are asking people to move from a very dominant player, and so there has to be a reason,” says Harrison. And with shoppers’ budgets continuing to be stretched, “currently one of those reasons is a financial one”, he adds.

Other stout suppliers, meanwhile, have decided the best approach is to offer something different. Take Badger Beer’s Master Stoat Coffee Stout. The non-nitrogenated bottled beer launched in September 2023 and has seen value sales almost triple to £910k in the past year.

“It’s been one of our most successful pieces of NPD for a long time,” says Mountford. “We’ve got some other products in our developmental pipeline along those lines.”

Guinness has also been busy in terms of innovation. Nitrosurge – a stout that replicates a pub-poured pint at home by using a handheld device – was added in March 2023.

“We identified a clear opportunity to bring more on-trade drinkers into the Guinness at home business”, says MacDonald. Nitrosurge is now worth £14.8m, having almost doubled both value and volumes in the past year.

Alcohol-free sales surge

However, it is in alcohol-free where Guinness’ NPD has really hit home. With consumers off all ages increasingly eschewing alcohol, Guinness 0.0 has helped retain and recruit shoppers in a way Diageo could have scarcely believed possible at launch in 2020. As well as being the UK’s leading alcohol-free beer brand, the product now accounts for 17.8% of all Guinness value sales in the off-trade.

“Even four or five years ago, there was a perception that it could still be quite small,” says MacDonald. “But seeing how consumer habits have changed, and how it has enabled us to bring in new consumers and recruit women into the brand, we see it as the single biggest breakout growth opportunity.”

Taken in totality, the strategy appears to be working. Polled on which brands they had heard something positive or negative about in the past fortnight, nearly 2,000 adults gave Guinness a higher net positive score than any other beer or cider [YouGov November 2024]. The trend was most pronounced among younger cohorts, where 18 to 24-year-olds were nearly three times as likely to have a positive impression of the brand than over-55s.

Meanwhile, loyalty card data from one retailer for the 26 weeks to 16 February 2025 shows a 4.8% increase in Guinness sales to young shoppers and families, versus a 0.7% decline among older people.

Other styles of beer struggle

Given that level of demand for Guinness, it’s no surprise to see an ale brewer like Badger turn its attention to stout. Beset by shoppers turning away from traditional brews, the ale category outside of stout is looking somewhat stale. Value sales have slid 3.5% on volumes down 8.9% [NIQ].

The question of how to attract younger consumers back to bitter is a “million dollar” one, Mountford says. Ale, he says, is “seen as a bit of an old man’s drink”, and the category is “a sea of brown bottles” with limited innovation.

As part of a bid to regain relevance, Badger overhauled its premium bottled ale (PBA) range in September 2023 to give it “a more contemporary feel”, Mountford says. The rebrand is having the desired effect, he says, pointing to Kantar data showing volumes of Badger Beers’ ales grew 51.6% , versus a 10% decline for the wider PBA category [12 w/e 29 September 2024].

It’s also focusing on NPD. Badger will this spring launch Red Rascal, a 4% abv cherry mild, while its craft range Outland now boasts eight beers, including a black IPA added in October 2024.

“Most breweries tend to focus on one or two big sellers, but we realised our strength lay in our portfolio,” says Mountford. “We’re trying to inject a bit of interest, to make people want to come back and discover something new.”

Lager could do with a similar injection of excitement. Sales have gone flat. Just three of the top 10 largest brands were able to sell more volumes this past year. The market is down 0.9% in value, while volumes have dipped 2.5%.

An expected sales uplift from the men’s Euro 2024 tournament last summer was “lower than anticipated” due to poor weather, says NIQ senior client insight partner Rob Hallworth. Households are cutting back on booze amid “concerns about the economic outlook along with a wider moderation trend”, he notes

On a product level, however, there have been some strong performances in lager. Take Carlsberg Danish Pilsner, which lowered its abv from 3.8% to 3.4% in summer 2023 to take advantage of duty savings.

The move has led to lower prices and a drastic turnaround in fortunes for the brew. It has reversed the value and volume declines reported last year, adding £10.9m on volumes up 15.2%.

And pre-promotional prices across the traditional big four mults and Waitrose have fallen 1.9% year on year [Assosia 52 w/e 25 February 2025].

“Consumers are price-conscious – particularly with the high cost of living – but there is a resilient demand for high-quality experiences,” says Ben Parker, Carlsberg Britvic off-trade VP. “We’ve seen really positive growth for Carlsberg Danish Pilsner, and part of that comes from a strong value proposition.”

Value, Parker insists, is “driven not just by cost, but by quality”. Nevertheless, “we take great pride in delivering that quality at a very competitive price, and this drives loyalty to the brand and repeat purchase”, he adds.

It’s worth noting that other mainstream lagers that have not elected to reformulate are struggling. Budweiser, Carling and Foster’s have lost a combined £108.3m, having seen 54.9 million litres fewer pass through tills.

In the face of such losses, suppliers could do worse than look to the example of Guinness to revive their fortunes, Harrison believes. “Quality must be at the forefront of everything the customer experiences,” he says.

“Whether that is through NPD and innovation, simple things like glassware and PoS right through to promotional mechanics. Where there is less volume, you’ve got to do the basics right.

“Look at your packaging. Look at your products, and then back to social media. What can you do to drive younger consumers to your brand? You’ve got to have something that is authentic.”

Cider’s authenticity drive

Authenticity is also a prerequisite for success in cider, insists Darryl Hinksman, head of business development at Westons Cider.

The cider market is looking bruised. Value sales are down 1.5% on volumes down 2.4%.

But Henry Westons Vintage is one cider that’s bucking the trend. It’s added £3.6m on volumes up 0.2% – a showing only bettered by Heineken’s Inch’s Medium Apple cider, which has added £16.2m on volumes up 45.2%.

“Those performing best are creating premium and authentic ciders with real heritage and a story that resonates with consumers,” says Hinksman.

“This is the value many shoppers are looking for and they’re prepared to pay a little extra for this quality.”

It’s a view shared by Martin Thatcher, MD at Thatchers. “We share many qualities with Guinness,” he says.

“We’re both authentic, heritage brands that are trusted for our taste and consistency. We’re both rooted in our homelands and pride ourselves on our history and attention to detail.”

While Thatchers’ flagship Gold has lost £2.6m on volumes down 7.7%, sales at a brand level are up 8% on volumes up 2.9%. That’s been driven by new variants like Juicy Apple, launched last summer as part of a bid to appeal to younger shoppers.

The “refreshing, easy-drinking” drink has added more value to the category in the past three months than any other cider launched in the past year [NIQ 12 w/e 25 January 2025].

Sustainability appeals

Juicy Apple also caters to demand from shoppers for “brands that share their personal values and contribute to environmental causes”, says Thatcher.

The sweet 4% abv cider is made using 100% green electricity – including power generated from 3,000 solar panels on the roof of Thatchers’ Myrtle Farm in Somerset. It carries the strapline ‘Powered by sunshine’.

“Sustainability is intrinsic to who we are,” says Thatcher. “We’ve been working in partnership with nature for 120 years and we’re constantly looking to the next generation and how we can leave things in better shape for them.

“We don’t do it as a deliberate thing to attract consumers,” he adds. “We do it because it’s the right thing to do.”

That’s a cool slogan. Maybe it would look good on a £160 T-shirt.

Published on The Grocer, 1st April 2025

https://www.thegrocer.co.uk/category-reports/why-stout-is-back-in-fashion-trends-in-beer-and-cider-2025/702871.article