Ireland 2019: Dublin’s Guinness Storehouse

We had two hop-offs on our sightseeing bus tour of Dublin. The girls got off just past Dublin Castle to visit Dublin’s two great cathedrals, Christ Church and St Patrick’s. And the boys hopped off a few minutes later to tour the Guinness Storehouse, rated as the number one tourist attraction in Dublin. We would soon learn the story of Sir Arthur Guinness, who took over the St James Gate Brewery in 1759 and introduced his magic dark brew to the world.

About to enter the Guinness Storehouse.

Click on any photo to see a larger version of that photo.

What do Smirnoff Vodka, Johnny Walker Black Label, Bailey’s Irish Cream, Tanqueray Gin, Captain Morgan Rum, Roe and Co Irish Whiskey, Don Julio tequila and Guinness Beer have in common? They are all owned by Diageo, a British multi-national company formed in 1997 when Guinness Brewery and Grand Metropolitan merged. Diageo is an invented name. It comes from the Latin dies meaning “day” and the Greek root geo meaning “world.”

Guinness used to be the largest beer company in the world. Now Diageo is the second largest distillery. The largest is the Chinese-owned Kweichow Moutai company.

Props and photos present the history of the brewery in the rare old times.

From the outside the Storehouse is just a hundred-years-old multistory brick building, much like many of its neighbors. But from the inside the building was designed to resemble a huge glass pint of Guinness. You start at the store on the ground level and make your way up escalators and stairways to a circular rooftop lounge where you can obtain your complementary Guinness Draught and drink contentedly while you gaze at Dublin.

The Guinness Store is on the ground level. We finished the tour in the Gravity Bar six levels up.

We learned that there are ten steps in the brewing process.

Before the tour is over you will become an expert on the ingredients of Guinness stout.

The barley in Guinness.

Facts about Hops.

On our first trip to Ireland in 2002 we spent a few days in Cashel, Tipperary looking for ancestors. We didn’t find any but one day while strolling through the gardens of the Cashel Palace hotel we found the original Guinness hops plant. The hotel was once the bishop’s palace and Richard Guinness, father of Sir Arthur and agent for the bishop, once planted the hops for his boss who liked to dabble with homemade brew. The story goes that one day in 1740 Richard threw some hops in the barley roast and created the black stuff. Nineteen years later Richard’s son used the recipe when he took over the St James Gate Brewery.

More info on hops.

Arthur’s yeast.

No, it doesn’t come from the Liffey!

Here’s to Arthur!

The roasting temperature.

Blarney on the barley.

The first of four steps in the fermentation process.

In Step 2 the yeast converts natural sugars to alcohol. CO2 is created in Step 3. In Step 4 the yeast imparts unique flavors and aromas on the beer.

The building was constructed in 1902 and was once was a fermentation plant. In 1997 it was redesigned to be the museum you see today and it opened to the public as The Guinness Storehouse in 2002. Further improvements involving multi-media demonstrations of the brewing process were made in 2006-08.

The super ingredient in Guinness Draught.

The story of Michael Ash and the bubbles in your pint.

More blarney but hey it’s scientific!

My grandson, his father and his godfather. All enjoyed the tour. Only two of three enjoyed the beer.

Lessons on drinking alcohol.

I encountered a lot of raw noise while processing this photo!

I processed most of these photos in Lightroom. In some of them I tinkered with the DxO Nik Collection Dfine and sharpening packages. And I used the DxO Photo Lab software in a few of them. Most of the area inside the Storehouse was pretty dark and required a high ISO. Some of the photos came out a tad blurry because the shutter speed was too slow for my shaky hands. I probably should have used an even higher ISO to solve that problem.

Guinness and cask-making.

Many celebrities have dropped by over the years, including two presidents of the US and the Queen of England.

We finally reached the Gravity Bar on top of the roof.

My grandson takes his first sip of the black stuff. He didn’t like it.

Looking toward Phoenix Park and the Wellington Testimonial.

Another view of Dublin from the Gravity Bar.

We had our pints and took in the panoramic views of Dublin and then left the Storehouse to join our ladies and our sightseeing tour.

The next day we went on an all-day bus trip to County Wicklow south of Dublin where we visited Glendalough and the Powerscourt Gardens. They will be the subjects of my next two posts.

Irish Music Bonus — The Irish Rover by The Dubliners and The Pogues

Guess what happens when a trad Irish band gets together with a Celtic punk group from London and have a few pints. Well, you will see for yourself in this video clip from 1987 when Ronnie Drew and The Dubliners meet Shane MacGowan and The Pogues. The Dubliners were celebrating their 25th anniversary at the time while the Pogues were on their fifth. Watch closely and you might notice Christy Moore playing the bodhran in the background.