In the fog-shrouded streets of 1868 Dublin, where the Liffey laps at the foundations of empire and the air hums with the ferment of revolution, a single pint can topple dynasties. Netflix’s House of Guinness, the latest opus from Peaky Blinders maestro Steven Knight, has uncorked a torrent of intrigue since its September 25 premiere, blending the ruthless boardroom brawls of Succession with the razor-sharp gangland grit that made Tommy Shelby a global icon. Eight episodes of sumptuous period excess, this series doesn’t just dramatize the birth of a brewing behemoth—it’s a heady elixir of sibling sabotage, forbidden desires, and the intoxicating lure of legacy. As the Guinness heirs scramble to salvage their father’s black-gold empire amid Fenian uprisings and personal demons, viewers are left gasping for the next pour. In a streaming landscape thirsty for historical heft, House of Guinness delivers a frothy pint of scandal that’s equal parts refreshment and reckoning.

The series opens with a funeral fit for a fallen king: Sir Benjamin Guinness, the iron-fisted patriarch who transformed a modest alehouse into Ireland’s economic juggernaut, lies in state as his four adult children—Arthur, Edward, Anne, and Ben—circle like vultures in velvet. Benjamin’s will, a Machiavellian masterstroke, thrusts joint stewardship of the brewery upon his warring offspring, chaining them in a fragile alliance that exposes fractures long buried under layers of privilege. Arthur, the eldest and most volatile, grapples with a secret that could shatter the family’s Protestant facade in a Catholic-choked city teetering on rebellion. Edward, the golden boy with a gambler’s soul, chases highs that threaten to bankrupt the lot. Anne, the sharp-tongued only daughter, navigates a world of corseted constraints, her ambitions clashing against the era’s ironclad gender lines. And Ben, the quiet idealist, harbors visions of reform that pit him against the very machine he’s meant to oil.

Knight, ever the alchemist of ambition’s dark arts, weaves this familial fray into the broader tapestry of 19th-century Ireland—a powder keg where the Guinness fortune funds both philanthropic spires and shadowy Fenian plots. The brewery isn’t mere backdrop; it’s the beating heart, its vats churning out not just stout but the lifeblood of a nation. Episodes pulse with visceral set pieces: clandestine meetings in malt-scented warehouses, duels of wit over crystal decanters, and a climactic clash that echoes the 1867 Fenian Rising, where loyalties fracture like fine bone china. Spanning Dublin’s gaslit alleys to New York’s immigrant underbelly—where Guinness barrels fuel the transatlantic dream—the narrative arcs toward a finale that leaves alliances in tatters and the empire’s future as murky as a hungover dawn. It’s Knight at his most audacious, trading Birmingham’s razor gangs for porter politics, yet retaining that signature blend of operatic violence and whispered vulnerability.

At the series’ core is a quartet of heirs whose performances elevate the script’s serpentine turns into something profoundly human. Anthony Boyle, the Belfast-born firebrand who scorched screens as Crowley in His Dark Materials and shone in Masters of the Air, embodies Arthur with a feral intensity that recalls Cillian Murphy’s Shelby—brooding eyes masking a storm of suppressed rage. His Arthur is a powder keg of piety and perversion, a man whose public rectitude conceals appetites that could ignite the whole tenement. “Arthur’s the soul of the show,” Knight has mused in interviews, praising Boyle’s ability to “make you root for the devil in a dog collar.” Opposite him, Louis Partridge—last seen as the doe-eyed heartthrob in Enola Holmes—lends Edward a Byronic allure, his tousled locks and roguish grin belying a descent into debauchery that feels both tragic and thrilling. Partridge, at 23, channels the heedless privilege of youth with a charisma that makes every ill-advised wager a vicarious rush.

Emily Fairn, the breakout from BBC’s The Responder, brings a steel-spined sensuality to Anne, transforming the archetypal “spare” sister into a proto-feminist force. Cloaked in emerald silks that evoke the Irish wilds, Fairn’s Anne wields intellect like a stiletto, her alliances with radical suffragettes and brewery whistleblowers adding layers of subversion to the family’s gilded cage. “She’s the conscience we didn’t know we needed,” Fairn shared during a Dublin press junket, her Mancunian lilt softening the character’s bite. Rounding out the siblings is Fionn O’Shea, the Irish wunderkind from Normal People, as Ben—the black sheep with a bleeding heart. O’Shea’s portrayal is a quiet revelation: wide-eyed optimism curdling into disillusionment, his Ben’s flirtations with Fenian firebrands inject a revolutionary pulse that grounds the opulence in peril.

Orbiting this volatile nucleus is a constellation of supporting players who amplify the drama’s decadent hum. James Norton, the Happy Valley hunk whose brooding charisma has long hinted at untapped depths, sizzles as Sean Rafferty, a cunning distillery magnate whose loyalties shift like Dublin fog. Norton’s pheromones practically steam off the screen in scenes of charged negotiation and illicit liaison, his Irish brogue—honed through months of coaching—adding a layer of authenticity that elevates the ensemble. “Sean’s the wildcard,” Norton quipped, “the man who could buy the family or burn it down.” Niamh McCormack cuts a determined figure as Ellen Cochrane, Anne’s fiercely loyal maid-cum-confidante, her quiet ferocity a nod to the unsung women propping up empires. Jack Gleeson, forever Joffrey to Game of Thrones fans, reinvents as the oily Byron Hughes, a Fenian agitator whose silver tongue masks revolutionary zeal. Danielle Galligan (Shadow and Bone) and Ann Skelly (The Nevers) sparkle as society sirens entangled in the brothers’ webs, while veterans like Dervla Kirwan, Michael McElhatton (Game of Thrones‘ Roose Bolton), and Seamus O’Hara provide grizzled gravitas to the periphery.

Knight’s vision, realized through director Tom Shankland’s lens, is a feast for the senses—opulent without ostentation, gritty without grime. Filming spanned Dublin’s Georgian squares, the labyrinthine lanes of the Liberties (Guinness’s historic heart), and Liverpool’s Tobacco Warehouse at Stanley Dock, standing in for New York’s Gilded Age sprawl. Production designer David Ingram conjures a world of polished mahogany and flickering gaslight, where brewery halls echo with the thunder of steam engines and the clink of illicit coin. Costume maven Sophie Canale drapes the cast in tartan tweeds and lace-trimmed mourning weeds, evoking a steampunk-tinged Victoriana that Knight dubs “Punk Porter.” The score, a riotous clash of orchestral swells and anachronistic Irish rock—think U2’s brooding edges fused with The Pogues’ raw howl—propels the action, with tracks from Fontaines D.C., Kneecap, and Murder Capital underscoring the cultural ferment. Executive producer Ivana Lowell, a Guinness scion whose memoir Why Not Say What Happened? inspired Knight’s dive into the family’s eccentric lore, lent insider flavor: “It’s not biography; it’s the myth we all deserve.”

Thematically, House of Guinness grapples with the double-edged pint of progress. At its core is the immigrant’s paradox—the Guinnesses, Protestant ascendancy atop a Catholic underclass, embody the empire’s hypocrisy, their wealth built on barley fields tilled by the starving. Knight probes inheritance’s curse: how Benjamin’s “gift” of shared control forces confrontation with personal failings—addiction, infidelity, ideological treason—mirroring Ireland’s own identity crisis on the cusp of Home Rule. Gender and class simmer beneath the surface; Anne’s arc, in particular, spotlights the era’s suffocating mores, her dalliances with female radicals a subversive thread in Knight’s feminist undercurrents. Yet, for all its historical anchoring, the series leans into fabulism—exaggerated heists, hallucinatory fever dreams—crafting a tone that’s less docudrama than fevered fable. “History’s the scaffold,” Knight insists, “but drama’s the draught that gets you drunk.”

Reception has been as divided as a contested will. Critics worldwide have toasted its verve: Variety hails a “solid family drama” with “compelling tales of ambition and desire,” while The Hollywood Reporter praises its “big, splashy moments” and Knight’s “electric energy.” Rotten Tomatoes’ 87% fresh rating underscores the binge appeal, with audiences logging over 50 million hours in the first week—a stout pour for a late-summer drop. Fans on X (formerly Twitter) are rabid, flooding feeds with #HouseOfGuinness memes of Norton’s smolder and Boyle’s breakdowns, petitions for Season 2 surging past 100,000 signatures. “Peaky with pints—sign me up,” one viral post declares, while another crowns it “the autumn binge we needed.”

Yet, closer to home, the brew has soured some palates. Irish reviewers, from The Irish Times to The Guardian‘s Emerald Isle desk, decry it as “a steampunk Mr. Tayto”—overly stylized, accents adrift (Norton’s Dublin drawl draws particular ire), and liberties taken that border on caricature. “Like a bad pint in a kitsch pub,” laments one Irish News scribe, faulting its “feral leprechaun” tropes and soap-opera sheen. Molly Guinness, a living descendant, fired off a Reddit missive branding it “as real as a soap opera,” though Lowell counters that the show’s froth is its frolicsome intent. Even the soundtrack splits opinions: while global viewers groove to the Irish indie infusion, purists pine for fiddles over synths. Still, the backlash has only amplified the buzz, turning House of Guinness into a cultural Rorschach—mirror to Ireland’s eternal dance with its myths.

As the credits fade on Season 1’s gut-wrenching twist—a Fenian bomb under the brewery’s foundations—Knight teases expansion: “The Guinnesses didn’t stop at stout; neither will we.” With New York arcs primed for transatlantic turmoil and Anne’s radicalism hinting at suffragette storms, a second season feels inevitable, perhaps delving into the 1880s land wars or the family’s philanthropic pivot. In an era of prestige pablum, House of Guinness stands tall—a reminder that the best stories, like the best brews, balance bitterness with buoyancy. Raise a glass to the heirs who dared dream bigger than their father’s shadow. Trouble’s brewing, and we’re all parched for more.