O'How I-Rish to Find the Pot of Gold: My Goodness, My Guinness

Our group had two goals this weekend: attend the Merrion Square Street Festival as well as the Guinness Storehouse.

The street fest is a free event which books street performers for entertainment. It's basically an outdoor circus with limited equipment. We only walked down the street and saw one performance, but I got it on video, no worries.

I spent a bit of time editing all the videos from the performance together on iMovie.

He juggled a machete, axe, and knife blind folded at end, but for some reason I could not get that video to load.

YES, he is juggling with a real chain saw. He used it to cut through a metal can to prove that it was real.

After walking through the festival, we decided to head to the Guinness Storehouse. Little did I know, it would be about a 30 minute walk, so I took some photos along the way:

St. Augustine Church

Portion of Dublinia Castle

More Dublinia Castle

For all the people at home: ARLINTON!

We arrived at the Guinness Storehouse where I realized there was a 4 euro discount if you had a student id. Lucky for me (sarcastic) I forgot mine. Lucky for me again (not sarcastic) I asked for the discount and she gave it to me anyway--THANKS GUINNESS!

To begin the tour, we started in a large circular structure in which all of the floors rotated around. We were told we were standing in the world's largest pint glass (it would take 5 days to fill, although they did not give us the pints/sec or hour or any similar measurement).

At the bottom of the pint glass was a copy of the 9000 year lease signed by the owner of the land as well as Arthur Guinness himself. That's some pretty solid brand confidence if you ask me (8,750 years left on the lease...)

Ingredient #1: Barley

Every year, 100,000 tonnes of Irish barley are used a year to make Guinness. That's 2/3s of Ireland's barley a year.

I got to touch some..

*****IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE :In order to touch this barley and take a picture of it, I had to free my hands of my Brochure/Map as well as my ticket (needed for a later event) and jacket. It went down by my feet....

Ingredient 2: Hops

There were real hops growing behind the glass here, so you could actually smell it all around you.

Ingredient 3: Yeast
Legend has it that the yeast used to make Guinness today is still the same strain as the yeast Arthur Guinness used. There was a small erlinmeyer flask with fixed yeast that was on display (forgot to take the picture), but they have a reserve supply of the yeast always locked up in the Director's safe in case anything disastrous happens to the main supply.

Ingredient 4: Water
The water used to make Guinness comes from the Wicklow mountains of Ireland and is known for its purity. 8 Million Litres of water are used everyday at Guinness.

Many people throw euros into the water tank to make wishes. All of the money collected there is donated to Water of Life, an organization dedicated to supplying clean water to Africa.

original documents and items of Arthur Guinness

I found the above and the below windows to take pictures out of. These are actual brewing machines of Guinness or something. After I took the second picture, the windows tinted up. I think you are not supposed to be able to see out of them and they forgot to tint the windows.

Ceramic Guinness bottles from the 1800s I believe?

The harp, signature of Guinness as well as a symbol for the Republic of Ireland

And for the most anticipated part of the tour....

We were given a sample and taught how to properly taste it...

And then... we were to go to the very top floor to the Gravity Bar: a circular room with floor to ceiling glass windows overlooking Dublin and Ireland.

So you remember that IMPORTANT SIDE NOTE? Well, you need a ticket to get a complimentary pint of Guinness to enjoy in the Gravity Bar. I am certain I dropped mine back when I had to pick up the barley.

Lucky for me (not sarcastic) again again, José some how forgot to give his ticket to the bar and just took a pint. So he let me have his ticket to get my own. Funny thing about it was, I didn't see one person get carded the entire time I was in the Gravity Bar, but for some reason, I was carded: pretty embarrassing.