Today began with me waking up and rushing over to the Guinness Brewery to tour as soon as they opened. This is supposed to be the original ‘deed’ to rent out this place for 9000 years. So we’ll have Guinness for awhile.
Overall, it wasn’t really a tour like other places I’ve been. Felt more like a low-key ‘Disneyland’ for people who enjoyed Guinness. Displays of barley, hops, water processing, etc. They no longer brew Guinness at this particular spot (but in buildings around, where we weren’t allowed to go).
Interactive ‘painting’ displays. They reacted to motion, I think. You’d walk by and one would start up. It was pretty neat.
An animation of what goes on in the stills. Or barrels. I actually am not sure if they call them stills in beer-making…
A cafe with models of all the ways Guinness is transported around the world. Nothing really catching me here. I think I’d rather just go to learn how to pour and have a pint.
Oh wait! This is cool. A giant pint glass (probably 10 feet tall) mural thing.
Absolutely.
So I was the only person who was around for a pouring lesson, so I got a good one-on-one. And then got hit on by the guy who taught me. Shame I wasn’t spending another night in Dublin. But there’s my pint! I poured it myself and it’s settling. Reminds me of espresso. Time to head to the tallest point and drink my Guinness!
It’s a beautiful, cloudy day from the top of the Guinness Brewery. Supposedly beer is brewed in those buildings below. Wish the tour included going in there, but ah well.
There were two other people here (plus servers, getting ready for the day). I was the only one with a pint at 10am. Breakfast!
Selfie! Ok. Enjoyed this thoroughly, especially the view. But I have to kind of rush through – my Jameson tour is going to start soon and I definitely do not want to miss that.
So I grabbed a cab back to the hotel to check out; the tour was supposed to last past check out. Left my bags with the front desk and crossed over to the Jameson Distillery.
An old still sitting in the courtyard. Pretty awesome decoration if you ask me.
I took a picture of this because I’ve worked in nutrition experiments where we used the grain from this process (called ‘dried distiller grain’). It’s got a great, sweet smell to it, and livestock go nuts over it. It’s got some good nutrition to it too.
A bar just inside the distillery. In case you need a drink before (or after) your tour.
Like the Guinness building, this one is no longer used by Jameson to actually produce whiskey. However, the tour here was so much better and had a lot of the old machinery still in. And I’m pretty sure everyone who went on this tour (K & RL, KH, JT III) had the same tour guide that I did.
Illustrating what happens in the whiskey barrels – the most-full on the bottom is how whiskey looks when it first gets put into the barrel. The top with the tour guide’s hand that’s a pretty shade of ‘yes please’ is how it looks when they’re ready to put it into bottles. So much evaporation (Angel’s Share) & absorption into the barrel (Devil’s Cut)! I just wanted to take a whole barrel home.
I was one of the lucky few who received a dowel (that green tube thing) for extra whiskey tastings – specifically to compare Jameson (both the normal and the 12 year) to Scotch and Jack Daniels (which was very popular in Ireland, go figure). So, in other words, I drank a lot of whiskey. It was fantastic.
Do I look pretty happy? Because I know after a beautifully-poured Guiness and 6-ish whiskey shots in less than 4 hours, I feel pretty damn happy.
Time to catch a cab and get to the airport to meet with KL and RHL. I think the cab driver was thoroughly amused with my current state and how I managed to ‘live it up Irishly’ in the morning, and told me to look him up the next time I’m in Dublin.
No pictures of me meeting KL and RHL on this blog. I think they have them at their blog. All I remember is the hangover crawling on and being presented with our traditional travel gift – a vomit bag. We rented a car and headed out to Belfast. Again, no pictures of that drive…I’m really not entirely sure if I did anything else but sit in the back seat.
Once at Belfast though, we found out that KL & RHL had a nice hotel in an amazing spot…
I was in a different hotel, but it didn’t take us too long to get settled in and head out. We needed dinner and drinks (I think I love Ireland – drunk this morning, more drinking tonight!).
Gorgeous little bar that our friend KH frequents when she’s here apparently. No food though – but we will come back and drink here!
KL flying up the stairs. This is where my post leaves off – a few blurry pictures not worth posting here. After finding out this place’s kitchen was closed, we opted for a quick pizza and then went back to The Crown to sit and drink. We were lucky and managed to snag one of the tables that was walled in by itself. It had a door…and a buzzer! We had some folks join us – two different groups – one of locals, one of people who were going to party a lot harder than I wanted to after – and thoroughly enjoyed ourselves. However, I did not document the night nearly as well as KL…