Irish Free Day: My Goodness, My Guinness

Got Guinness?
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After our travel to Ireland, visit to Boots, and fun festivities of last evening, it was nice to be able to sleep in for a bit this morning! The musical pub crawl provided the group with a lesson in traditional Irish music, some fantastic tunes, and endless laughs. I think it is safe to say that a good time was had by all! Today was a free day in Dublin which gave everyone a chance to explore Ireland’s capital city. Most of the group decided to head off to the world-famous Guinness brewery today for a tour of the facilities and a fresh sample of the brew.

The Guinness Storehouse, which is the name of the building housing the tour, was an impressive sight to say the least. The center of the building was designed to resemble a pint glass rising seven stories. They have determined that it would take 14.3 million pints of the brew to fill the glass! The tour leads visitors through the brewing process that goes into producing Guinness starting from the scratch materials of yeast, barley, hops, and water. The water used to make the beer comes from the Wicklow Mountain streams located near Dublin. The tour leads you up the building’s stories as you learn about the beer’s production. The tour ends at the Gravity Bar which is located on the seventh floor and happens to be Dublin’s highest bar. The bar provides each guest (of age) with a complimentary pint of Guinness and a spectacular view of the city.

I found the tour to be extremely interesting and I previously had no idea how popular the beer is worldwide. Guinness is distributed to over 150 countries worldwide and is brewed in about 50 countries. The original brewery of St. James’s Gate that we toured today was established in 1759 and produces about three million pints a day! This brewery is certainly not going anywhere either because when Arthur Guinness signed the lease, he did so for 9000 years! While this dark brew is certainly an acquired taste not particularly popular with many of the girls in the group, I would still highly recommend the tour to anyone who is interested is seeing how beer is produced.

As usual, we have run into our share of scattered showers in Dublin, but it has been pretty nice weather overall. The city certainly offers many things to see, including the typical tourist hot spots. Some of the more famous and impressive sights include the Dublin Spire, Trinity College, and St. Patrick’s Cathedral. The Dublin Spire is a massive tower built to celebrate the turning of the millennium which is well over 300 feet tall. Truly a sight to see! The Irish locals have been extremely nice and are quick to strike up conversation. Maybe I’ll even find some time to talk about Irish healthcare! HaHa…..just kidding! I plan on learning all I can about Ireland’s healthcare and culture from those who know it best……the residents.

Jace Knutson