The company dates back to 1759. Its founder, Arthur, was born near Dublin in 1725. Arthur’s father was a land steward, and his duties included the brewing of beer for workers on the estate. Arthur probably learned the art of brewing from his father. 1759 was not an auspicious time to start a brewing company --- at the time, English beer was taxed less severely than beer brewed in Ireland. Undeterred, Arthur leased a run-down, poorly-equipped brewery at St James’s Gate in Dublin. Guinness has been housed there ever since --- probably because the lease was for 9000 years at an annual rate of £45. In the 1770s, a new drink – the strong black beer called porter – was being exported from London and Arthur decided to try his hand at brewing it. He proved to be extremely successful at it and the rest is history.
But the one factoid I can’t erase from my now Guinness-addled brain is that Arthur’s wife (the heiress Olivia Whitmore) gave birth to 21 children.
Anyway, the Guinness STOREHOUSE® is the crown jewel of the Dublin skyline, topped by the “gravity bar,” a bar bounded by a 360-degree circular wall of glass. Originally built in 1904 to house the GUINNESS® fermentation process, the storehouse was constructed in the style of the Chicago school of architecture and defined by massive steel beams which support a building modeled on a giant pint glass. They haven't fermented GUINNESS beer here, though, since 1988. The building was opened in November 2000 as a tourist attraction and houses seven floors of GUINNESS lore and exhibits. The Guinness property is impressive, with huge bricked walls and edifices and cobblestoned walks. The Storehouse is fascinating, an impressive marriage of old and new. As you enter, you're greeted by a backlit wall of multi-hued beer bottles:
From there, a self-guided tour takes walked us through the brewing process. Exhibits included a room-size sandbox full of barley that looked remarkably like a ginormous cat litter box. Next, we entered an exhibit about the spring water that provides the foundation for Guinness. It's demonstrated by an interactive waterfall under which you can walk and view the waterfall from beneath and behind:
Next, we got to taste-test the roasted barley -- a small kernel explodes in your mouth with the telltale smoky bitterness that defines the Guinness brew. We watched video of the ways in which GUINNESS has been transported over the years (including via barge over the River Liffey, requiring ingenious barge designs to negotiate the low bridges), and a scale model of the buildings on the GUINNESS property. A few members of our group een got certified in the art of pulling a pint. Along the way we encountered vats and barrels and every implement used in the brewing process:
As our reward for ascending the seven floors of the storehouse, we were rewarded at end of the tour with a pint of GUINNESS and a panoramic view of a Dublin cityscape littered with steeples and building cranes (many of which had been decorated with Christmas lights). There are no skyscrapers in Dublin; at seven floors, we're as high as it gets.
The one drawback to the Gravity Bar is that there is scant little seating, and its very loud -- with so many reflective surfaces, all sound is reflected back into the room. So, as you get your courtesy pint, you jostle for the next available seat (which takes a while), then sink into a seat to enjoy the brew. This place must be a zoo during the tourist season.
I was a little disappointed not to make it to the Jameson's Distillery while in Dublin. It would have made for a nice double-header.
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