Dublin Up at the Guinness Storehouse

On the morning of our last full day in Dublin, we walked past Christ Church Cathedral and then St. Patrick's Cathedral in search of the Irish mecca for beer drinkers from around the world.

We arrived at the Guinness Storehouse a little before it opened.  Prices were higher than we'd seen on their web site, so we went to a bench, logged into the Internet on my phone and purchased "advance" tickets.  The only problem was a delay of up to an hour, but we were early enough that it seemed worth the extra few minutes wait.  Soon, we were in.

The tour begins with a live host's introduction beside a monument embedded in the floor, the famous 9,000 year lease for the St. James Place brewery location that was signed by founder Arthur Guinness in 1759.

At 45 Irish pounds per year, it probably set some kind of record for monetary value for a lease in Dublin, but now only 260 years into the term, it seems Arthur negotiated a pretty good deal.

Guinness is no longer the largest brewery in the world, but it is the biggest brewer of stout. Interestingly, it seems Arthur didn't begin operations with that type of beer in mind.

He accidentally burned a batch of his normal ale, so he sold it at a discount to the porters at local docks.

That should have been the end of it, but some of those hard-working dock workers liked the flavor more than the bargain.

They came around the brewery asking for some more of that dark ale.

Today, many people including myself prefer that roasted, coffee-like flavor of Guinness, which has encouraged knockoffs often referred to as "Porters."

The ingredients are pretty well-known.  Water, roasted barley (both malted and un-malted), hops and brewer's yeast.  The foamy head comes from mixing carbon dioxide and nitrogen with the beer.

The tour guests are all provided headsets with which to conduct self-guided tours.  Many rush through the exhibits to get to the tasting room, which seems like a rather expensive way to sample beer readily available throughout not only Dublin but the world.

Julie and I took our time...well, perhaps Julie waited patiently while I took my time.

At the Guinness Storehouse, I found the presentation about the diminishing craft of coopering particularly fascinating.  The video showed how Premium American White Oak staves were shaped and slowly curved, bound together by metal bands and then aged and cured into water-tight casks.  During the peak period of the 1920's, Guinness employed 300 highly-skilled, well-paid coopers.

In 1946, Guinness began converting to modern steel kegs, with the last wooden cask filled at St. James Brewery in March of 1963.  Guinness kept craftsmen on salary, allowing them to transition into retirement by using their skills to build barrel-themed furniture and other home decor items.



Another area of particular interest to me was the advertising section, because it matters not if you have a better product if no one knows about it.

As mentioned earlier, Arthur Guinness pioneered the practice of using discounts to attract "early adopters" to try new products when he mistakenly burned the barley.

Future Guinness management understood the value of a trademark, registering the famous Brian Boru Harp logo on April 5, 1862.

The harp itself, with a legend dating back to the reign of its namesake, the High King of Ireland at the dawn of the second millennium A.D., is considered a symbol of Irish royalty, so it's not surprising that the Irish government also wanted to use it as its logo.

Because Guinness already had the trademark, however, the nation had to reverse the position of the strings and pillar from what they actually wanted, flipping the harp logo on its axis.

The advertising area also featured the work of commercial artist John Gilroy, who created those adds with a zookeeper and assorted animals, including the toucan that adorns my Guinness tee-shirt that I bought at Target maybe 20 years ago.

When we reached the tasting area, Julie refused to try her beer, a policy she's had since taking a single sip of beer as a teenager a few years ago, so that meant two samples of each for me.

After the tasting, we had the opportunity to become masters of the art of pouring the Perfect Pint.

I earned a certificate attesting to such.  As you may have guessed, there's not much to it.

First, choose the perfect Guinness glass, with a tulip bulb shape on top.  Put the glass at a 45 degree angle under the tap with the harp away from you, and fill halfway up the golden harp logo on the glass's bulb.

Let it rest until the creamy mix settles to separate the foamy head from the dark brown body.

Then put the glass under the tap --- this time level rather than tilted --- and finish topping it off.

Finally, hold your masterpiece up to the light to appreciate the colors before slowly sipping the foam until you hit the ale.

Voila!

We then had the opportunity to drink our own Perfect Pints.

The top floor bar, which Julie had been looking forward to as the best part of the tour, turned out to be crammed with too many people to be enjoyable.  Perhaps the reason tourists were blowing through the tour was in order to get to that bar before it became packed.

After snagging seats just as others left, we realized it wasn't all that pleasant being jammed into our little chairs with a bunch of beer drinkers pushing to take in the view, especially if like Julie you really don't care for the smell of beer.

We soon headed down a flight of stairs to the restaurant bar below to order Guinness Cottage Pie.  Once again, it was very good, but still not as good as what we'd had at Madigan's Pub.

I had Julie's voucher for another beer, because she had passed on becoming certified to pour the Perfect Pint herself.  That gave me the opportunity to ask one of the Guinness barkeeps a question.

"Why do glasses of Guinness sometimes taste soapy in pubs?  Does Guinness require the use of some sort of detergent in cleaning the taps that results in that flavor distortion?"

The bartender assured me that was neither an issue of the bar tap nor the Guinness in the keg.  He said most likely it is simply that bartenders carelessly rinse after dipping the glasses in the soapy cleaner.  I know during my brief time operating the Weinstube in Old World Village that I questioned how effective that standard method of washing bar glasses really could be.  I've decided to start asking for the beer glass to be rinsed under tap water before filling.

Sated by our lunch --- not to mention far more beer than I'm accustomed to drinking, though it should be noted that despite its rich, creamy body that Guinness is actually low in calories and not particularly high in alcohol content --- we headed downstairs to leave.

We found a small crowd gathered just inside the door, as heavy rain was now falling outside.  As we considered whether to get a taxi, the rain let up, so we decided to walk.

We hadn't gotten far before it started pouring buckets again, so we found a bit of shelter and waited for a calm in the storm.

Our trip home continued by fits and starts, and each time it seemed that calling a taxi was the only logical thing to do, the rain let up.

Nonetheless, we walked all the way back to the Staycity Aparthotel and other than my Dublin Perfect Pint certificate rolled into my jacket sleeve getting wet and consequently frayed around the edges, we were really none the worse for wear.

Our clothes soon dried out, and we were ready to head out to experience more of Dublin.