(Dublin, IRELAND) – It is no surprise that with the surge of craft beer in 2009, big players in the business like Guinness want to claim a piece of the pie.

A Beer Advocate user kindly posted an excerpt from a Beernet.com interview this week (premium content so no direct link to interview):

“ON NEW GUINNESS LINE EXTENSIONS. ‘Craft is a huge opportunity for us. We are the original craft beer, but we haven’t marketed ourselves that way and that’s going to change. GES [Guinness Extra Stout] has been growing for us single digits without much focus or attention other than putting it in craft sets. So there’s more opportunity there. The second piece we’re looking at doing is bringing in Guinness Foreign Extra Stout, which got an A- on BeerAdvocate.com. We are currently testing that in New York and Atlanta. We’re looking to roll that out. It has a higher ABV of 7.5 and a hoppier taste, and so it plays right into those types of craft beers. We’re also going to test a product called Guinness Black Lager. It will retail anywhere from $8.49 to $9.49. The target is 25 to 34 year olds and it has a great craft taste. We’re looking at testing that in September. It’s currently rolled out in Ireland and Malaysia, and early indications are that it’s bringing new drinkers into the franchise.’

Guinness FES also scores pretty highly at RateBeer.com, ranking in the 90th percentile among foreign extra stouts.

Look for more products from Guinness in the States this year.