Guiness Hop Store, Dublin > Reviews (10)

INTRODUCTION

My wife and I kept sightseeing in Dublin to a minimum. You can spend too much time looking at the main sights of a city and not mix enough with the local folk.

We could have visited Dublin Castle, Dublin Zoo, the Wax Museum or the Dublin Writers Museum. But we plumped for a tour of the Guinness Storehouse.

We declined to visit the Heineken Brewery in Amsterdam and the Carlsberg Brewery in Copenhagen. So this was third time lucky.

I hold a few shares in Diageo, which owns Guinness. So it was nice as a shareholder to visit the premises.

A hotel receptionist told me that some Irish men drank 20 pints of Guinness per night. This must increase the turnover of Diageo considerably.

HOW WE GOT THERE

There was a hop-on and hop-off tourist bus, which started from O’Connell Street.

We got tickets from the Irish Tourism Office. The atmosphere inside the office resembled a morgue. No one was smiling.

Tickets cost 8 Irish pounds per adult.

The tourist bus departed every 15 minutes. It stopped at 15 tourist spots. You can hop off at any time. The next bus is less than 15 minutes away.

These stops included the Wax Museum, Dublin Writers Museum, Trinity College, Grafton Street, Dublinia, Dublin Castle, Dublin Zoo, Jameson WhiskeyDistillery etc.

If no stops were made then the completed tour would take 1 hour and 15 minutes.

The bus drivers gave excellent commentary. Both our drivers even sang during the tour.

The Guinness Storehouse was around stop 12.

ENTRANCE

The entrance to the Guinness Storehouse was about 3 minutes walk away from the bus stop. We immediately smelled the burning of hops from the nearby brewery.

The entrance was not signposted very well. We simply followed the other tourists.

An escalator took us to the ground floor. Then an Irish lass warmly greeted us. The Storehouse was built on the original brewery site. The building was massive.

There was not much of a queue at the ticket desk. Tickets cost 9.50 Irish pounds per person. But we got a 1 Irish pound discount per person by showing the tour bus tickets.

We were given 2 paperweights, which contained a few drops of Guinness. These also acted as tickets for our free drinks on the 6th floor.

THE INGREDIENTS

The entrance to the exhibits was right behind the ticket counter.

There were huge swirls of light in a darkened room. I later found out that this represented the inside of a pint of Guinness.

There were exhibits of all the ingredients of Guinness. These included water, barley, hops and yeast.

There was also the original lease for St James’ Gate Brewery signed by Arthur Guinness in 1759.

There were stairs, lifts and escalators to other parts of the Storehouse.

BREWING

Making Guinness involved milling, mashing, fermenting, maturing, clarifying and blending.

There were various machines on the 1st floor demonstrating these processes.

I was surprised to learn that in the past Guinness was used for medicinal purposes.

BARREL MAKING

In the past Guinness was stored in barrels.

Some of the original barrels were on display on the 1st floor.

On closer inspection there was a short movie displayed in each barrel about barrel making.

Barrel makers were known as coopers. It took a lot of skill to cut, steam and hammer the casks into shape. The coopers were really hard workers.

One strange fact was that most of the coopers had the same surname. As a result nicknames were given to all of them.

These casks were used to transport Guinness all over the world. The means of transportation included horse, barge, train, ship, lorry and yak.

ADVERTISEMENTS

Guinness is famous for its TV advertisements. On the 2nd floor there were huge screens showing all the Guinness TV adverts.

My favourite was the one with the surfers and horses. I also remember the advert from a few years ago featuring the music of Cuban conductor Perez Prado.

Also on this floor were various beer mats from years gone by.

SIXTH FLOOR HEAVEN

The beauty of any trip to a brewery is the free samples at the end of the tour.

We took the escalator to the 6th floor to the Gravity Bar.

We got 2 free pints of Guinness after showing the barman the paperweights we received at the ticket desk.

The Guinness was much stronger than found in the UK. This was due to a greater concentration of hops in the brew.

My wife found the Guinness too bitter for her liking so I drank her pint.

But I bought my wife a coke instead.

There were 3 bar staff serving the tourists. The bloke serving me was a little worse for wear for drink and was quite funny.

There were several tables situated around the bar.

I went to another table to steal a chair and nearly managed to decapitate another drinker.

The view from the Gravity Bar was fantastic. We saw all of Dublin at once. By this time the Guinness was kicking in and I left my wife to take all the pictures.

I even took a couple of beer mats as souvenirs.

THE SOUVENIR SHOP

Luckily there were toilets on the 5th floor. We then took a lift to the ground floor and the souvenir shop was nearby.

Being quite tipsy by this time I managed to slump into a chair while my wife did all the shopping.

The shop was full of items specifically designed for the tourist. This shop was huge in size. It even sold copies of The Guinness Book of Records.

Prices were much more expensive than at other souvenir shops in the centre of Dublin. In fact the shop was a bit of a tourist trap.

FINAL THOUGHTS

The 3rd floor has a conference room. The 4th floor has a training bar where staff learn how to pour the perfect pint of Guinness. The 5th floor has another bar, which also serves food.

It was Guinness engineers who invented the widget in cans. The widget releases nitrogen bubbles into the drink so that a head is formed.

We really enjoyed our first visit to a brewery. The exhibits were really well thought out. There was a lot of walking to do. But luckily there was plenty of seating everywhere.

The entrance tickets and souvenir shop were more expensive than they should have been. But most of the visitors were tourists who probably will never return here.

Ironically near the brewery is a psychiatric hospital, which treats long term alcoholics.

I can imagine my father would say ‘How dare you went on a sightseeing tour and not have visited Dublin Castle. Instead you spent your time in a brewery. Your sense of culture has eroded. All the money I spent on your education has been wasted’.

I’ll drink a pint of Guinness to these comments. Cheers!