WATER. MALTED BARLEY. HOPS. YEAST. COPPER. OAK. FIRE. FAMILY. MONEY. REBELLION. POWER.

According to the titles that spool out over a music video–style montage showing the making of the legendary brew, these are the ingredients that go into both a pint of Guinness and House of Guinness itself. The approach to getting this information across is stylish, slick, bombastic, and direct. The text is a blend of cold hard facts and poetic embellishment. It’s a bit corny in places, but knowingly so: People who play with themes like “FAMILY. MONEY. REBELLION. POWER” know they’re walking well-trod territory, so they might as well dance their way across it instead.

That seems to be the approach of writer-creator Steven Knight, previously responsible for the well-regarded British gangster period piece Peaky Blinders, as well as the excellent 19th-century bareknuckle-boxing drama A Thousand Blows earlier this year. This seems an altogether less serious, more scandalous and sudsy effort than ATB, which was anchored in part by powerhouse performances from future Adolescence stars Stephen Graham and Erin Doherty. There’s only so silly you can get when those two are giving their all.

This is not to sell short any of the talents involved in House of Guinness, which is prefaced with the amusingly Wildean description “THIS FICTION IS INSPIRED BY TRUE STORIES.” This is is the historical-fiction TV-show equivalent of David Bowie slapping every copy of The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders from Mars with the phrase TO BE PLAYED AT MAXIMUM VOLUME — a sign that above all, we’re here to jam out and have fun.

That’s what the core cast do. The story begins in the run-up to the May 1868 funeral procession of Sir Benjamin Lee Guinness, the Protestant Irish owner of the already hugely successful Guinness stout brewery, and a member of Parliament in Her Majesty’s government to boot. Needless to say he has failed to endear himself to many of his fellow Dublin residents, from hardcore Protestant evangelicals who hate his product to hardcore Fenian rebels who hate his Protestantism and loyalty to England. 

The old man’s death creates a power vacuum in the city: the brewery and its affiliated business, from docks to whorehouses, are major employers, and his position in Parliament matters a great deal to the political future of Ireland. It now falls to his four children to determine the future of the company.

Arthur (Anthony Boyle, Say Nothing), the eldest, has spent the past five years in London, where he’s picked up the customs, the accent, and — if you read between the lines — a penchant for ladies of the night that may or may not be affectionate in nature. Edward (Louis Partridge, Disclaimer) has stayed at home, learning the ins and outs of the brewery; presuming the less interested Arthur inherits it, as everyone expects, Edward makes a deal to buy him out for an effort-free 35% of the profits. The two men spend most of the episode together, standing side by side while bantering about each other, their father, and their future.

Next up is Anne (Emily Fairn), who seems like the wild card of the family. She’s religious, and classy, and more ferocious than any of her brothers. She’s also deeply conflicted about the affair she’s having with Rafferty (James Norton), the Guinness family’s chief enforcer in the brewery, on the docks, and in the streets. (Sample quote: “Three nights ago you and I went beyond all limits!”) Note that Rafferty refers to her as Mrs. Plunkett: her gaunt reverend husband William (Tim Creed) seems hardly a consideration.

Finally, there’s Benjamin (Fionn O’Shea), a junkie who can barely stand for his father’s funeral. He’s romantically involved with Lady Christine O’Madden (Jessica Reynolds), a beautiful aristocrat whose family is down on its luck, which Arthur at least presumes is the cause of her interest in his brother. But Benjamin himself is dead broke and deep in hock to Bonnie Champion (David Wilmot), the gangster whom the Guinnesses employ to oversee brothels and gambling establishments among their facilities to keep the men entertained. 

Champion’s one of several other older-generation figures in the siblings orbit. Others include their loyal butler, Mr. Potter (Michael McElhatton), who’s aware of Anne’s tryst with Rafferty; Aunt Agnes (Dervla Kirwan), who suspects either Arthur or Edward of being no good, though she doesn’t say who; Uncle Rev. Henry Grattan Guinness (Michael Colgan), who wants to make sure the family money keeps rolling into the church’s coffers.

The Guinness clan’s chief enemies this episode, other than themselves I guess, are the Fenians, members of the revolutionary Irish Republican Brotherhood. Their hotheaded leader Patrick (Seamus O’Hara) runs around picking fights with funeral processions and lighting huge pyramids of beer barrels on fire — thus almost certainly pissing off the good people of Dublin, who enjoy the dang beer. That’s the view of his shrewder sister, Ellen (Niamv McCormack), who thinks blackmail rather than brute force is the route to parlaying the power vacuum to the Fenians’ advantage.

Using her connections among the House of Guinness’s help, Ellen learns of Arthur’s experience with what she judiciously refers to as the, er, non-gambling side of Bonnie Champion’s extracurricular activities. Champion seems to tell Ellen what he knows off-camera, then covers for her presence when her idiot brother torches the barrels despite her ordering him not to. Interestingly, Rafferty — whose monologue to Anne about how he’d like to rut with her in an alley like howling cats — appears to see much of this and ignore it. Does he know Ellen, or does it just seem like two hot people would naturally know each other?

The constant presence of anachronistic music throughout the proceedings — from “Starburster,” the Fontaines D.C. song also used as the theme for the British/Irish gangster series MobLand, to a track by the controversial Irish rap group Kneecap over the closing credits — kind of gives the game away here, if the cheeky true-fiction framing hadn’t done so already. I suppose there’s serious business going on here to an extent — centuries of serious business, when you think about it — but we’re here for the glitz, glamour, grime, gore, and…well, I ran out of “g” words, but sex, that’s what we’re here for. 

That’s what this episode delivers. Not in spectacular fashion or anything — there’s nothing here that struck me the way the performances, shot compositions, and structure of the first episode of A Thousand Blows did, for instance. But I’m certainly curious about a lot of it — what’s up with Arthur, which brother’s the real bad apple, whether the Fenians will become more interesting, whether we’ll get brawls with a better soundtrack, and so on. I also enjoyed the idea behind the final sequence, a race to roll barrels off the dock before they could catch fire until the rain puts an end to the crew’s efforts. Pour me another pint o’ this, why not.

Sean T. Collins (@theseantcollins) writes about TV for Rolling Stone, Vulture, The New York Times, and anyplace that will have him, really. He and his family live on Long Island.