Diageo opens €300m brewery in Kildare 

Plans already in place for a second brewery over the next three years, with work due to begin this year

Diageo CEO Dave Lewis with Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Colin O'Brien, Diageo at the official opening of the company's Littleconnell Brewery in County Kildare. Picture: Niall Carson/PA Wire

Diageo officially opens its new €300m Littleconnell brewery in Co Kildare on Monday, with more than 50 jobs created at the 40‑acre site which will focus on lager and ale production and freeing up stout production at the Guinness Brewery in Dublin.

The new brewery will see a further €400m invested over the next three years. Diageo plans to invest €400m at the site to create a second brewery over the next three years, with work due to begin this year. The new facility, known as Brewery 2, will be dedicated to the production of Guinness and Guinness 0.0 and will more than double total site capacity, supporting the global growth of Guinness.

Construction at Diageo’s Littleconnell Brewery in Kildare. The site officially opens on Monday, with more than 50 jobs created.

As part of a near €1bn investment between 2020 and 2029, Diageo has already completed work at St James’s Gate and its Belfast packaging site to increase capacity and support Guinness 0.0, with further work planned to support the decarbonisation of St James’s Gate.

For now, the Littleconnell brewery will produce a range of ales and lagers, including Rockshore, Harp, Smithwick’s, and Kilkenny, alongside licensed beers such as Carlsberg. 

Taoiseach Micheál Martin and Diageo CEO Dave Lewis officially open the Littleconnell Brewery on Monday morning.