Travel Log: Dublin: Guinness Storehouse

On my last day in Dublin I finally made it to tour the Guinness Storehouse. You can't actually tour the brewery, but they have a self-guided tour through a building that is shaped like a massive pint glass. That would hold 14 million pints of Guinness if it were filled. Pretty cool. I actually hadn't had ANY Guinness up until that point. Absurd, I know. Especially considering how many people had asked me to have a Guinness FOR them. But I did see Guinness everywhere I went, and loved all the pub signs that invariably mentioned GUINNESS:

The massive Guinness complex is pretty intense, with lots of buildings, and massive gates and tanks...

The storehouse entrance is amidst all this...

The tour was pretty cool, and I learned way more about Guinness than I ever could have wanted to know, from intricacies about the brewing process to how the wooden casks that it was racked in were made. I learned that the largest Guinness brewery in the world is in Lagos, Nigeria (yet another reason I clearly need to go there) and that the original strain of yeast (yea, like from the 1750s) is still used in all the Guinness that is made everywhere in the world. Intense. I also learned a bit about how Guinness has been advertised over the years, and in particular liked these two ads:

Indeed :)

I'm not sure my waistline would agree, but maybe somehow this works out??

At the top of the storehouse is the 360 degree "gravity" bar, from which you could see incredible views of the city:

 

You could also get your "complimentary" (free with your 14 euro entry fee) pint of Guinness to drink while enjoying the views:

Truth be told, I didn't finish my pint. Guinness is tasty, but I somehow think it needs to be enjoyed with food and/or friends, neither of which I had there. So, I got my fill and took in the view and said farewell to the hops and barley. So now whenever someone talks about Guinness I can casually chime in, "Oh yea, one time I drank Guinness... in Dublin... at the Guinness storehouse." Shazam.