Exploring Ireland | A trip to St James Gate
My trip to the Guinness Storehouse needed its own dedicated post. One, for my sheer love of the dark stuff and two, because it's actually a pretty good afternoon out.
Located off the south quays of Dublin, the Guiness factory at St James Gate has been standing since 1759 and was the western entrance into the city.
The whole area takes you back to the days of when Guinness was first produced, and despite the modern technology which fills the museum / brewery, you still get a feel of the history and heritage there from the cobbled streets to the exposed brick.
The lease signed by Arthur Guinness
Tickets cost €20 per adult or €18 for students and include a pint of Guinness on the forth or seventh bar (I highly recommend the Gravity Bar up on 7th). Some people told me that his would "this would be the most expensive pint of Guinness, that I would buy in Dublin" - but I'm here to say that's not true, because this tour offers a whole lot more.
The first floor tells the story of how Guinness is made and uses abstract and interactive ways to so the water being collected from the Wicklow mountains to the specially grown hops.
The next floor talks about the production and shows in great detail how much effort went into making each of the wooden barrels to store Guinness in.
Honestly, this shouldn't sound that interesting, but I was fixated for about 15 minutes.
Moving on up to the fourth floor is the Guinness Academy, a place where you can use your beer token and learn to poor the perfect pint. There is also the option to go on a tasting tour and hear about the different flavours, hops and ways to taste Guinness.
The next floor - 5th - was personally my favourite. This was the advertising floor, highlighting the history of Guinness and their classic advertising campaigns.
There was so much that I loved about this floor, but most of all the installation of the 'Tick, Followed, Tock' clocks and surf boards was so cool. Also, the giant 'TV' advert room was something else. Playing all of the classic Guinness TV ads in a darkened room with a 360 surround sound was pretty memorable.
Moving on up to the final floor, we made our way up to floor 7 to experience the Gravity bar (we skipped floor 6 as this was primarily food and more booze).
Here you can enjoy 360 degree view of Dublin city centre, along with the beautiful mountains in the distance.
But most importantly, here is where you can enjoy the best Guinness of your life. Cheers.