This book offers a comprehensive accounting history of Guinness, the world-famous stout company. It reveals accounting inputs and practices behind some of the company’s key decisions and developments since the late eighteenth century.

The book focuses on the external and internal accounting and finances of Guinness. Beginning from its inception as a small family business, the book spans through to the present day and sets this aspect of the company’s history in the context of larger changes in financial accounting and reporting standards. Guinness is known for its innovative approach to management and strategic decisions, and for its efforts to improve the lives of workers and the local community. But behind such efforts lie accounting numbers, and this text seeks to explore the role of the Accounting Department in financial management. This book will be an excellent resource for financial, accounting and business historians, as well as those interested in Irish history and the history of the brewing industry.

Martin Quinn is Professor of Management Accounting and Accounting History at Queen’s Business School, Queen’s University Belfast. Since 2011, his research has focused on historical accounting records in the brewing industry, particularly Guinness. He has published widely on Guinness’s accounting practices and co-edited a volume on accounting history and brewing.

Kevin Egan is a historian specialising in the Guinness family. Originally trained in medieval and early modern history, his interest deepened after working at the Guinness Storehouse. He completed his PhD in 2024 on the family’s influence in Dublin and is author of a biography of Walter Guinness, 1st Lord Moyne.