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Guinness barrels were made by coopers: craftsmen who shaped oak staves, drew them tightly together with metal hoops, and fitted wooden heads to form a cask. A 2015 Retrotechtacular feature follows cooper Dick Flanagan through that hand-built process, while Guinness Storehouse heritage pages explain why the brewery once employed a large team of coopers at St. James’s Gate.
What is coopering?
Coopering is the craft of making wooden casks from shaped staves held together by hoops. Guinness operated an onsite cooperage at St. James’s Gate in Dublin because the brewery needed casks to ship its beer. Guinness Storehouse says wooden casks served that purpose for almost 200 years.
The Guinness Storehouse describes the work as physically demanding and done by hand, without adhesives. Making a sound cask depended on accurately shaping the wood and fitting the parts together. Casks intended to hold liquids, including Guinness casks, belonged to what Guinness calls wet coopering; its heritage account also names white and dry coopering as other categories.
How did the filmed cooper make a Guinness cask?
In its July 21, 2015 feature, Hackaday identifies the cooper in the historical film as Dick Flanagan. Its account follows one filmed build; the timings and sequence below describe that work, not a universal specification for every cooperage.
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- Prepare the staves. Flanagan starts with oak planks, or staves, that the feature says have dried in racks for at least two years. He trims their ends and shapes them by hand with an axe and an adze.
- Set the cask’s shape. He arranges enough staves into a cylinder inside a metal hoop. The initial hoop holds the partly assembled body together while the staves remain open at the other end.
- Steam and draw the staves together. The feature says the staves are steamed for about half an hour to make them pliable. Flanagan then uses wire rope to pull the open ends closer, allowing him to fit another hoop.
- Finish the body. The film account describes charring the inside with burning oak shavings, sanding the ends, drilling the bunghole, and smoothing the outside. Flanagan also makes hoops to fit the cask.
- Make and fit the heads. The cask’s heads are built from more oak staves held with dowels. Their edges are beveled so they can fit into grooves in the cask walls.
The Guinness Storehouse’s broader description helps explain why this was skilled work: the cask was assembled without adhesives, so the wood had to be shaped and fitted with considerable precision.
Why did Guinness need so many coopers?
Guinness Storehouse says the brewery’s scale created substantial demand for casks. Its St. James’s Gate Cooperage page says half of Dublin’s coopers worked at the site in the 1920s; a separate Storehouse article gives a figure of approximately 300 coopers there during that decade. These are retrospective figures published by Guinness, not independently verified workforce statistics.
Guinness Storehouse describes apprenticeship as rigorous and says it could take five to seven years. That long route into the trade reflects the judgment involved in shaping and assembling a cask by hand.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.What happened to the cooperage?
Hackaday’s 2015 account says aluminium barrels rose in the late 1950s, followed later by stainless-steel barrels, contributing to the decline of Guinness’s master coopers. The timing and connection are attributed here to Hackaday’s feature; the Guinness heritage pages cited above establish the earlier role of wooden casks but do not independently corroborate that transition.
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- Limited Edition coffee called ‘232 Brew’ by GUINNESS and Tiki Tonga Coffee Roasters
- Inspired by GUINNESS, the coffee beans are roasted at 232°C
- A joint venture with a shared passion for rugby - GUINNESS and Tiki Tonga
- This delicious blend can be enjoyed by coffee connoisseurs and rugby fans alike
- Expertly brewed by the Tiki Tonga Coffee Roasters in the UK
Sources
- Hackaday, “Retrotechtacular: Coopering Guinness Barrels By Hand,” July 21, 2015
- Guinness Storehouse, “St. James’s Gate Cooperage”
- Guinness Storehouse, “A Day in the Life of a Guinness Cooper”
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