THE DEVILS OWN DRINK!! (Guiness Brewery)

Name: Emma1973

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Product:	Guiness Brewery
Date:	05/09/02 (825 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Quite interesting, For some the free beer

Disadvantages: The stuff is disgusting

Dublin = Guinness, Guinness= Dublin. You cant separate the two! You're surrounded everywhere you go by advertising, souvenirs and the fact that the brewery covers rather a large area of the city!

So a visit to the Guinness Store House is almost obligatory, its rather an imposing building, part of the still working brewery which stills produces 10 million pints of the stuff EVERY DAY and its a massive 7 seven storeys high.

Standing the reception its an awesome mix of brick, metal and glass, a see-through elevator goes right to the top and at quite an alarming speed! The entrance fee isn't too bad, 12 euros for an adult, 10 for students and OAPs and about 5 for kids. This gets you entry to the Storehouse, a lovely little pin in the shape of a pint with a cheery face and the most important thing, a ticket for a free pint of Guinness up in the bar or a soft drink. I was a bit let down that they now had paper tickets for the free drink rather than the transparent stone with the single drop on Guinness in it, but hey, technology moves on.

Each floor is dedicated to something different, the ground floor shows the ingredients that go into Guinness, there is a fantastic waterfall that hides a display of hat goes into the it. There is also an exhibition showing the story of Arthur Guinness and the start of the brewery, this is done through huge TV screens drawings and original documents.

Carrying on upstairs, we can see how the ingredients are blended, the brilliant thing is not only being able to see what the ingredients look like through the process but also smell them! You also get to see the vats and copper drums they were mixed in. Slightly less interesting is the cooperage where you get to watch videos of how barrels are made (Yawn!!!), the transport bit isn't brilliant, it could be developed a lot further.
I never realised how popular Guinness is abroad, it goes to every continent, if not every country in the world, i
ts also now brewed all over the world.

Going up again this floor is dedicated to the advertising of Guinness, there are interactive viewing stations where you can replay adverts from all over the world dating back to the 50's. Theres also displays of Guinness glasses, bottles and other memorabilia.

And of course there has to be a look at Guinness's other famous invention....the Guinness Book of Records. This came about from a discussion of which bird could fly the fastest! This is a very small display and could do with a lot of expanding.

From then on it gets a bit boring, the 3rd floor is home to the learning centre and reception, here bar staff can learn to pull the perfect pint, and conferences and seminars are held here.
Going up again you can 'Visit Guinness at Home', what exactly this means I'm not sure, it just seemed to be a wall where you stick cards saying how lovely Guinness is. Up to the 5th there is another exhibition gallery which was empty when we were there. There is also the bar and restaurant where you can try Guinness stew and other delicacies. Didn't appear to be too popular though.

The we are up to the highlight of the place, this is the Gravity Bar where you change your voucher for a pint of Guinness. Walking into the bar is simply amazing, a round structure , all the walls are glass so you get a full view of Dublin. There are chairs and tables scattered around the room, the bar itself is right in the centre of the room so no view is blocked. And its such a relaxed chilled out area you could spend a couple of hours up there (On my sisters visit, she spent 5 hours up there!).

Its a wonderful place to visit, most of it has wheelchair access but you'd be buggered if you got stuck there cos there wasn't an attendant in sight the whole time! Its very clean and presentable, especially the toilets (I've got a thing about clean toilets!), the staff are friendly and che
erful. The shop is of course full of Guinness products and are quite reasonable.
I would recommend the Storehouse for everyone, young children may get easily bored and taking a person with vertigo to the Gravity Bar is just plain cruel, but for most its an interesting few hours.

And after going up to the Gravity Bar I discovered.......Guinness really does still taste as foul as I remember...the proper brewed stuff or not!

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