House of Guinness: Bracing, Refreshing, Satisfying

I binged House of Guinness the past few nights.  I'm not a drinker, but I thought the 8-episode series on Netflix was outstanding.

It tells the story -- or the beginning of the story -- of how the four adult children of Benjamin Guinness, after his death in 1868, helped propel the brewery to become the biggest producer of beer in the world by 1886.   The series is billed as "Fiction ... Inspired by True Stories" which means it's even less true than most docudramas but not made up completely or materially out of thin air.   Whatever its mix of truth and fiction, House of Guinness, like a good mug of beer, provides a story that is bracing, refreshing, and satisfying,

The creator of the series -- Stephen Knight -- is best known (at least to me) as the creator of Peaky Blinders, one of the first and still one of the best series to be streamed by Netflix, and less reflective of reality than House of Guinness.  But the pacing, cinematography, and general character development of House of Guinness has a lot in common with its forebear.  You can feel the chill of night, the clinking of glasses, the mud on your shoes in both series.

Both series present all kinds of love stories, about all kinds of love, and are brilliantly acted.  With the exception of James Norton, who does a great job as Guinness enforcer Sean Rafferty, none of the actors were known, or known well, at least to me.  Special kudos to Anthony Boyle and Louis Partridge as Arthur and Edward Guinness, the oldest and next-to-oldest sons of Benjamin, and Niamh McCormack as Ellen Cochrane who, unfortunately for history, was not a real person.

Ellen is a Fenian, the Irish nationalist movement that eventually helped engender today's independent state of Ireland.  The Guinness family is Protestant, and the backdrop of House of Guinness, often bursting into the forefront, is the often violent struggle for Irish independence.  But, hey, I haven't warned you about spoilers, so I won't say anything more about the first season of House of Guinness, expect that there has to be a second season.