Next Step : Stout Hearts Lend Guinness Distinctive, Heady Aura : Worldwide outlook for the nearly black brew with the rich, creamy foam remains favorable.

The air in Dublin’s St. James Gate area along the River Liffey has a sharp but pleasant tang: the smell of roasting barley that gives Guinness Stout, the national drink of Ireland, its distinctive color.

For St. James Gate, which once served as an entry to the old, walled Irish capital, is the home of the Guinness Brewery, the world’s largest producer of the dark, heavy brew known as stout. With its dark, heavy brew, Guinness is successfully bucking an international trend toward the lighter-colored, less-alcoholic lagers that has swept America.

Worldwide sales for the Guinness Brewery are reaching record highs and the outlook for the nearly black, brew with the rich, creamy head is favorable.

“Our sales are up by 20% in Ireland and in Western Europe,” said Pat Barry, director of corporate affairs at Guinness Ireland. “We are strong in Africa and in Asia too.”

In the United States, Guinness remains a specialty beer, and as Barry noted, “We were up 19% in the States last year. Of course, we had tie-ins with the World Cup soccer matches last year. That helped.”

Now the brewery is pushing a chain of Irish pubs to promote its product. Old Guinness is distinctly up.

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In Ireland, Guinness has been a hit since the first batch was brewed not long after 1759 when young Arthur Guinness bought a failing brewery on the banks of the Liffey and began making ale, a slightly heavier form of beer.

The brewer, then 34, was attracted by a new dark drink coming into Dublin from London. It came in kegs and was called “porter” because it was favored by the porters in London’s Covent Garden market. Its other name was “stout porter” to describe its strength, and the word porter was often dropped.

The brew took its characteristic dark color from the roasted barley added to the malted barley for color and body. The slightly bitter flavor comes from hops, the creamy head from yeast and the freshness from the water of the Dublin Hills.

Initially, the Guiness trade was local but it soon spread throughout Ireland, transported in kegs on the country’s canal network. Later, with Dublin a major city of the expanding British Empire, Guinness expanded too--throughout the world.

Buyers came to Dublin, paid for their orders, and by 1803, Guinness West Indies Porter was being loaded aboard ships underway to the Caribbean area.

The brew masters and company officials collected testimony to their product. After the Battle of Waterloo in 1815, a wounded Enniskillen Dragoon recovering in Belgium wrote home: “When I was sufficiently recovered to be permitted nourishment, I felt the most extraordinary desire for a glass of Guinness, which I knew could be obtained without difficulty. I am confident that it contributed more than anything else to my recovery.”

Similar kind words came from writers like Robert Louis Stevenson and Charles Dickens, and the British politician Benjamin Disraeli, whose favorite supper was Guinness with oysters.

During the 19th Century, Guinness followed the Irish exodus to America; the New York franchise was granted in 1858. Demand later led to breweries in London, Nigeria, Malaysia, Cameroon and Ghana, all under the flag of the empire. Today, Guinness is brewed in more than 20 countries and is sold in more than 140.

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The beer varies in alcoholic content from 4% to nearly 8% depending on local tastes and laws. It comes in barrels as draft, in bottles, and in cans with a “widget” that provides a creamy head.

“More than 10 million glasses of Guinness are produced worldwide each day,” says Pat Barry.

With the rise in their brew, the fame of the Guinness family glowed as well. Lord Iveagh and Lord Moyne owed their aristocracy to suds. Any “Guinness heiress” was a sure-fire attention-getter in the press.

In recent years, the Guinness corporation become a major producer and distributor of other beers, and has moved into the hard-liquor field, purchasing United Distillers. Today it makes and markets such best-selling brands as Johnnie Walker, Bell’s and Dewars Scotch whiskies, Gordon’s and Tanqueray gins and Moet Hennessy Champagne and cognac.

Guinness PLC, the overall corporation based in London, has become the United Kingdom’s largest net exporter of consumer goods, four times the level of its nearest competitor. The value of its yearly exports is running close to $2 billion.

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The corporation recently announced the company had raised its dividend by 28%, and things were looking promising for the next financial year with development of lines like the Irish pubs chain, with 500 outlets as far afield as Canada and Singapore.

“These are typically, colorful Irish-style pubs, run by local entrepreneurs, which feature Guinness and the regional beers of the country,” said Barry, the corporate public relations man.

“They reflect the best of Ireland, and we think they also create an interest in the various countries for people to come as tourists to Ireland.”

Possibly as famous as the beer is the Guinness Book of World Records, which was originally devised in 1955 to settle arguments that arose in pubs. However, in deference to the mood of the times, the latest Guinness book refuses to list any drinking records.

But with all its attention to upbeat advertising, perhaps none of the Guinness account copywriters could top the Irish writer James Joyce’s characterization of his homeland’s brew.

Joyce called it “the wine of the country.”