On our last day in Ireland and on a Sunday morning, Tim and I went to the Guinness Storehouse. I know it's not a typical Sunday morning, but it was still great! We checked out of the hotel and ate breakfast, which was delicious, then we walked to the Guinness Storehouse and it was really fun! The tour is self-guided, but they have a lot of cool things in there, like the original 9000 year lease that the founder, Arthur Guinness, signed to have the Guinness factory at the St. James's Gate Brewery in Dublin. WOW, a 9000 year lease, crazy! All of the, I guess I'll call them, exhibits were really cool. The first floor talked about the four ingredients of Guinness: water, barley, hops and yeast. Guinness is the only (or one of the only) companies that roasts its barley, which is what gives Guinness it's "dark ruby color." (That's right, it's red, not black) Also, Guinness has their own special strain of yeast. They even have a sample locked up in case something happens to their main supply. Crazy!
The next floor dealt with the fifth and probably most important "ingredient," Arthur Guinness. To be honest though, the most interesting part of this section was learning about Olivia Whitmore, Arthur Guinness' wife. She had 21 children with Arthur! That's a lot of children, but unfortunately only six sons and four daughters survived. Anyway, on a lighter note, then Tim and I moved onto learning about the cooperage and transportation of Guinness. We stood there for five minutes or more, watching a video of a cooper making a barrel for Guinness. Also, did you know that a barrel is actually a size of cask. A cask is what we know as a barrel, but a cask comes in different sizes, like a kilderkin (16 gal.), barrel (32 gal.), and a butt (104 gal.). Anyway, cooperage was a pretty big art form back in the day and an apprenticeship to become a cooper lasted between five and seven years. Also, the art of coopering (?) stayed in the family and was passed on through the generations. Below is the video we watched at the Storehouse. It is of Master Cooper Dick Flanagan making a cask.
Also, if you watched the video, the cooper only uses a tool to measure once at 7:23, everything else is eyeballed. That is skill! Guinness had around 300 coopers employed back in the day, but by 1961, there were only 70. And in 1963, the last wooden cask was filled with Guinness because they had officially switched to the stainless steel keg.
After being extremely interested in cooperage, we moved onto the Taste Experience. The Taste Experience is where they have us smell all of the aromas that go into Guinness and then they teach us how to drink Guinness to get the intended effect. Want to know how to properly drink Guinness? You smell it, take a big drink, swish, inhale, swallow, exhale, repeat. And that's that.
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| Tim smelling some aromas of Guinness |
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| Tim in an advertisement |
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| Me in an advertisement |
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| Watching television ads through the decades |
After pouring our glass of Guinness, we headed up to the top floor of the Guinness Storehouse and saw the amazing view of Dublin. And to top it off, there was a rainbow! It was perfect!
After our tour of the Guinness Storehouse, we went back to the hotel, picked up our bags, went to Subway, bought a few souvenirs, and then got on a bus to the airport. Tim and I's flights to Madrid were unfortunately different, so Tim left three hours before me, which was kind of sad, but at least we got to see each other in Madrid again. Once in Madrid, we went back to my apartment, where I met my new roommate, Rocío, and we ate, and then it was off to bed. We had an amazing trip in Dublin and I was excited to show him what I had been up to in Madrid. Stayed tuned to hear about the days that Tim spent here in Madrid. :)
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