After ringing in the New Year, it was time to spend our final day in Dublin. Visiting this next place had been on our list since we planned our trip.
The next stop on our trip was to Guinness.
We made the early morning pilgrimage to the brewery, and even our cab driver was surprised to be taking us there before nine in the morning. Maybe he thought we were a couple of lushes, but he surmised that we would be some of the only ones on the tour that early.
He wasn’t entirely wrong.
The queue was virtually nonexistent. We also arrived too early for our entry time, so we walked up and down the street, taking in the sheer massiveness of the space. This is the brewery for Guinness. I expected it to be big, but I was still blown away by the scale. It’s awe-inspiring.
When it was finally our time to enter, we were not prepared for what we were walking into. It’s a gorgeous building that mimics a Guinness pint. A friendly guide welcomed us in with a little spiel about the space and informed us that it was a self-guided experience. They then told us you could expect to spend, on average, 90 minutes exploring the museum.
We spent four hours there. Whoops! Sorry, not sorry. We threw off the average!
There’s a 2010 documentary about Banksy called Exit Through the Gift Shop. Guinness makes you exit AND enter through the gift shop. More on that at the end of our visit.
Above is the 9,000-year lease for the brewery — yes, you read that right. 9,000 years. We are on a 14-month lease, and that can, at times, feel like a long time. It’s got nothing on 9,000 years!
After crossing over the lease, you enter a space that is both modern and timeless. Modern in its presentation and timeless in its offerings to guests. The tour starts with the ingredients in a classic pint of Guinness.
We walked through room after room, showcasing the various ingredients and methods used to brew the Irish stout. At times, it felt like we were walking through a spaceship that housed different rooms, each preserving ingredients for humanity’s future. It’s a bit grandiose, I know, but the tour’s layout is so inviting, informative, and downright cool.
I really wanted to run my hands through the grain like Maximus does at the beginning and end of Gladiator.
This is just a cool water feature highlighting that Guinness is made up of 95% water. Yes, you read that correctly. 95% of that rich and creamy goodness is water.
The tour then progresses through the brewing process and invites us into the inner workings of being a brewmaster. Not too much, because there are still trade secrets along the way, but we are given a window into the world of creating Guinness.
As the brewery has aged, it has modernized its process a bit while remaining true to its original identity. There is a focus on sustainability and on embracing science to pave the way forward for the brand. It’s easy to forget that brewing beer is a science (hell, my oldest sister wanted to be a brewmaster when she went to college, and she majored in chemistry. Now she’s a CRNA [Certified Registered Nurse Anesthetist], so she’s still helping “sedate” people, but in a more medically appropriate way.) Science evolves, opening doors to newer methods of practice.
Guinness looks to embrace that.
After making our way through the brewery process, it was time to finally enjoy a taste. We entered a room with a few dozen other guests, and a brief talk was given about the space, and that only guests of legal drinking age in Ireland were allowed to partake. Still, some people tried to sneak their younger kids a sip, feigning ignorance, but they were quickly met with a firm “No.”
I mean, if you’re going to sneak a kid a drink, do it the way I did and my sister’s before me: Hypothetically, pay a person hanging out front of a liquor store to buy you a couple of handles of liquor or a case of beer, and let the purchaser use the leftover cash to buy themselves something. This is all hypothetical, of course.
Our entry treated us to a, literally, little Guinness, and boy, was it delicious. I resisted the urge to pound the small shot of liquid, wanting to savor it. I knew that there would be an opportunity for more tastings, but this first initial morsel was a welcome delight.
After finishing our little Guinness, we entered the world of Guinness adverts. On display were various ad campaigns, slogans, and characters that Guinness has used over the years. It was a real treat to wander through the brand’s history and see how it has evolved over the years.
After taking a trip down memory lane for Guinness adverts, it was time for us to really whet our whistles. For our tour, we added on an experience at the Guinness Storehouse, where you could have your photo laser-etched onto the foam of a pint. We had no idea what the results would be like, but we were amazed at how unique and fun the experience turned out to be.
It’s our faces! On pints of Guinness! The sad part came when we had to drink our faces away. It had to happen, but my face tasted deliciously.
After this pint was finished, we made our way up to the top of the brewery to yet another bar. This one was different from the others that populate the building in that it came with quite a view. I’m going to interject here and say that we did, in fact, stop and eat midway through, so we were not just pounding back beers on an empty stomach. We strategically ate midway through at one of the restaurants in-house and then drank more beer. This wasn’t our first rodeo at a brewery.
I mean, look at that. A perfect pint. I had only learned about “Splitting The G” a few days prior, and my attempt was folly. If you are unfamiliar, “Splitting The G” refers to taking the first sip of Guinness and drinking just enough to leave your drink level somewhere in between the gap of the “G” in Guinness. I am terrible at it; my partner got closer than I did, which means we just need to practice — of course, in moderation.
Walking through the bar’s space was truly a treat. The weather had finally cooperated for the first time on our entire trip, and the sun was bright and shining. The top-floor bar offers a fantastic 360-degree view of Dublin and, on this day, beyond the city limits too. I don’t think we could’ve asked for better weather.
After spending nearly four hours inside, it was time to leave. We only realized how long we had been there once we reached the top and saw the sun starting to set. We made our way through the gift shop and purchased a few items that we couldn’t live without. It was mainly a pin and shirt for me, and some magnets as well, but the real treat was in the glassware my partner ordered beforehand.
She went ahead and bought us personalized pint glasses etched with our last names. It is a lovely keepsake for us to remember our visit to Dublin.
Oh man, I did not realize how tired I looked in this photo until it was staring me in the face on my computer screen. Well, that is what happens when you spend over four hours at a brewery tour and eat and drink your way through the experience. It was a lovely day for a Guinness and an excellent way to spend our final day in Dublin.
Who knows where the spirit of adventure will take us next!
John Kidde Writes 