Is Guinness Really Good for You? What Brands Don’t Tell You About Alcohol

I can still hear the conversations with my Grandad and Nan about Guinness. It was even given to women in hospital after they’d given birth. And who could forget those ads: “Guinness is good for you”. They really nailed the brand messaging.

That slogan dates back to the late 1920s, when Guinness first started advertising. The idea came from talking to their customers (aka pub drinkers), and, surprise surprise, people said they felt better after a pint of Guinness. So the brand ran with it.

Even I thought that drinking alcohol (especially Guinness) was good for me, but… it’s not true. There’s no evidence that anyone’s health improves by starting to drink, Guinness or otherwise. Yet nearly 100 years on, that idea is still woven into the brand, and the famous Irish stout brewed at St James’s Gate in Dublin remains one of the best-known beers in the world. It just goes to show how powerful advertising, slogans and messaging can be when you get them right. That’s the power of brands.

I’m sure plenty of people feel better after a Guinness, a glass of wine or their favourite beer. But I wonder how much of that is psychological. Is it the ritual? Opening the fridge, grabbing a cold can, hearing that hiss?

I’ve been speaking to Carol Urry, Alcohol Free Coach, all about it on the podcast, and I’ve learnt so much about the alcohol industry and all the things they don’t want you to know.

It’s easy for business owners (or anyone) to get caught up in the glass-of-wine-after-work lifestyle, or a few drinks at the weekend to relax. But I think it’s really important to pay attention to how alcohol might be affecting your overall performance. I’m not saying you need to stop drinking completely, but being informed and having the right knowledge is a good start.

Our conversation got me thinking about the times I’ve been stressed or needed to unwind (even more common as a business owner). The things I might have reached for in the past aren’t the things I reach for today. Yes, I like the odd glass of wine, but I know that if I want to manage my stress day to day, daily breathwork is far more effective than a daily glass of wine.

One of the first things Carol and I talked about was Sober October. A lot of people take part to prove to themselves that they don’t have a problem with alcohol. A month off has real benefits, but Carol asks a much better question: what have you actually learnt by the end of it? That’s why her programmes focus on why we drink in the first place, whether it’s to deal with stress, to feel more confident, to help us sleep or simply to switch off.

She was also really honest about her own story. During her 13 years in the Army, alcohol wasn’t a big part of her life. Over time, though, it slowly became a habit, and the problem with habits is that you build up a tolerance and need more to get the same feeling. She also made the point that a lot of people drink out of boredom, which I think many of us can relate to.

The turning point for Carol came when she read that alcohol is classed as a Group 1 carcinogen, the same category as tobacco, and has been since the late 1980s. That stopped her in her tracks. She wanted to be around for her children and grandchildren, and that was enough to make her change. She also shared a statistic that really surprised me: having just three drinks a week is linked to around a 15% higher risk of breast cancer. It’s not the kind of thing you’ll see on the side of a bottle.

Many of Carol’s clients are in their 40s and 50s, a generation where drinking was simply part of growing up. For a lot of them, it’s either drinking or not drinking, with nothing in between. Her advice is to start small by having one soft drink for every alcoholic drink. It’s such a simple swap, but it makes you think about each choice rather than doing it on autopilot.

For me, the whole conversation came back to branding. Guinness shows just how long a message can last when it’s simple and repeated often enough. Nearly 100 years later, many of us still half-believe it. That works both ways, though. The stories your brand tells shape what people believe about you, so it’s important to make sure they’re true.

So how much would you need to drink to get all those “health benefits”? According to the World Health Organization, there’s no safe amount of alcohol when it comes to our health.

Listen to Ep. 31 of Build Better Brands, Alcohol Freedom - with Carol Urry