More than 30 tools. Years to master. A craft built by eye.
Long before stainless-steel kegs became part of the brewery landscape, Guinness travelled in wood.
For almost two hundred years, wooden casks carried Guinness from St. James’s Gate to customers across Ireland and around the world. Behind them was a highly skilled group of craftsmen: the Guinness coopers.
Their job was to build, maintain and repair the casks that kept Guinness moving.
And it was anything but simple.
BUILT BY HAND
Coopering is the traditional craft of making wooden casks from individual timber staves held together by metal hoops. At Guinness, the coopers practised wet coopering — the most highly skilled of the three main forms of the trade, used to create casks capable of holding liquids.
A single cask could involve more than 30 different types of tool, with each stave carefully cut, shaped and fitted by hand.
There was remarkably little reliance on conventional measurement. The cooper worked largely by eye, drawing on years of experience to create a cask precise enough to remain watertight, strong enough to hold fermenting beer and durable enough to withstand years of use.
It was a skill that took time to earn.
A cooper’s apprenticeship could last between five and seven years, and the trade was traditionally passed from one generation of a family to the next.
Precision wasn’t a finishing touch. It was the job.
FROM STAVE TO CASK
The process began long before a finished cask took shape.
Guinness casks were traditionally made using Prime American White Oak. Before the timber reached the cooper’s hands, it was seasoned for a minimum of two years.
Only then could individual pieces of timber be selected and shaped into the curved staves that would eventually form the body of the cask.
The staves were gathered upright inside a metal hoop in a process known as “raising up.” Steam softened the timber so it could be drawn into its distinctive curved form before additional hoops were hammered into place.
No shortcuts. Just material, tools, experience and a very good eye.
FIRE. WOOD. STEEL. SKILL.
Once formed, the cask was placed over burning wood shavings.
The heat charred its interior, helping to dry the timber, set its shape and seal the wood. From there came another sequence of cutting, smoothing and fitting before the heads and final hoops could be put into place.
At the end of the process, the finished cask was branded with its own identification number and the Guinness name.
Then it was ready to be filled and sent out into the world.
FROM THE COOPERAGE TO THE COLLECTION
The tools have changed. The clothes have changed. But there is something about good craft that lasts.
The Guinness Cooperage Collection takes inspiration from this working heritage and reimagines it for today.
Heavyweight fabrics. Relaxed silhouettes. Corduroy, embroidery, patches and considered details. Each piece takes a cue from the character, practicality and craftsmanship of the Cooperage story without trying to recreate the past.
This is not a uniform.
It’s contemporary Guinness apparel with a remarkable story behind it.
BUILT ON CRAFT. MADE FOR NOW.
Wooden casks remained part of Guinness for almost two centuries. Aluminium kegs began to replace them in 1946, marking the beginning of the end of the traditional Cooperage at St. James’s Gate.
The last wooden cask was filled at the brewery in March 1963.
The craft belongs to another era.
The character behind it doesn’t.
THE GUINNESS COOPERAGE COLLECTION
Built on craft. Made for now.
COMING SOON
