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Thursday, March 1, 2018

Ireland Recap Part 2

I am back for another recap of Ireland. You can see Part 1 here.

We met for breakfast in our hotel each morning, but on this morning, I headed over to a little coffee shop (The Bakehouse) across the street for a latte and almond croissant. We had a meeting to get to, so we took a taxi to the south side of Dublin. We were there for the day and worked. Once we were done, we headed back to the hotel to change. Then we headed to the Guinness Brewery. We walked there from our hotel which was only about a mile away. The tour cost 25 Euros, but it was worth it. You walk around about 6 stories. Each story is different. There is a story dedicated to the advertising of Guinness, one to the brew process, one for a small tasting, one has a large store, another has a learning area where you can learn to pour a pint of Guinness the right way and another that is the gravity bar. This bar is on the top floor and it has an almost 360 degree view of Dublin. You can see many landmarks while you drink a freshly poured Guinness pint (included with your ticket).
Guinness Brewery tour
 The Guinness Brewery lease. It was for around 10,000 years or so.
Guinness Brewery tour hops

Guinness Brewery tour

Guinness Brewery tour
 Factory mills

Guinness Brewery tour art
Guinness Brewery art piece. 360 degree art piece which was really cool.

Guinness Brewery tour

Guinness Brewery tour advertising

Guinness Brewery tour advertising

You had the choice between the learning to pour your Guinness (and drinking it) or going to the gravity bar. You can walk in both areas, but you only get one beer. We chose the gravity bar.
Guinness Beer

Guinness Beer Gravity Bar

Guinness Beer Gravity Bar

After going through the tour, we headed back down to the first floor to check out the Guinness store. We bought a few things each, but my favorite was the Guinness dark chocolate bar. It has Guinness in it and definitely tastes like Guinness. Can I just say that Guinness beer tastes so different in Ireland. It is sooooo good. I drank Guinness anytime I had a beer and it renewed my love for Guinness. Now if only I could get a proper Guinness here in the states.
Dublin, Ireland

After our brewery tour, we headed to Teelings Distillery for a Irish Whiskey tour. This was a short walk from the Guinness Brewery.

There was three levels of the tour which were based on what you wanted to taste. They had one with the Teeling Small Batch and a whiskey cocktail for 15 Euros, another with the Small Batch, Small Grain and Single Malt for 20 Euros and finally the last with the Small Batch, Single Malt, Vintage Single Malt and Limited Edition Single Cask for 30 Euros. We chose the 30 Euro one because go big or go home. Plus I love trying whiskey's.

While we waited for our tour to start, we grabbed a sausage roll and coffee in the bakery and walked around an area where you learn more about Irish Whiskey and its role in Ireland.

Then the tour started. We went into a room and learned about the owners and the distillery before heading into the distillery. From here you learn about the process of making whiskey.
Teeling Distillery

Teeling Distillery tour

Teeling Distillery tour

We were able to smell barley, the fermentation process and see the three stills. From there we went into a cask room to see many barrels of whiskey.
Teeling Distillery whiskey

Then from there, we went into the tasting room. I LOVED all the whiskey's we tried. They taught us how to drink Irish whiskey properly, so you can really taste and smell the whiskey. You don't want to put your nose in the glass to smell it. You keep it a couple inches away from your nose and pass back and forth so you can really smell it.

Then you drink a small sip, taste it in your mouth and then exhale out (loudly) to get the full flavor. It was funny to watch this happen, but I have been doing that ever since. I even taught Rory about it.
Teeling Distillery whiskey tasting
 That is water in the back just in case you need to add a drop or two to your whiskey to tone it down.

Teeling Distillery whiskey tasting

After the tasting was done, I bought some items from the store and then we took a cab back to our hotel. We dropped off our things and went to an Italian restaurant (Bar Italia) for some pizza and appetizers. After pigging out, we headed to the Temple Bar area to go bar hopping a bit and stumbled into an amazing bar. We were upstairs getting a beer and saw/heard music playing downstairs. So we headed down and there was live Irish music being played. Everyone was dancing and having a great time. We sat there for a long time, singing, having Guinness beers and taking it all in. It was so much fun.
Dublin Ireland
The walk between our hotel and the Temple Bar area

The Temple Bar

Temple Bar area
 I took a picture of this to show to Rory.

Guinness Beers
After pouring the beers, they would stack them for each order.

After many beers, we walked back to our hotel and called it a night because we had a flight the next day to catch to England.

And there you have my Dublin, Ireland experience. I wish I was there longer to experience more, but I am so glad I got to spend the few days there that I did. I can't wait to go back and explore more of the country side.

8 comments :

  1. If I visited Dublin, I'm sure I'd go to the brewery and distillery because my husband loves those places!

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  2. So glad you did the Gusiness tour, so neat and so much history.

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  3. The tours sound amazing! We didn't get a chance to check any out and now I am wishing we did. Sierra~Beautifully Candid

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  4. So fun! I love seeing all the history and cool touches in the Guinness brewery. I did Heineken when I was in Amsterdam and I can attest that they taste better over there too! The fish on a bicycle is hysterical.

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  5. All. The. Beer. B and I love beer drinking so we would be in our element there! He's been before and he said all they did was work and drink. Lol.

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  6. Whooo... I feel like I can smell beer now just reading this :)

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  7. I am so jealous of the time you did get to spend there. It looks like such a cool place.

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  8. Yummm... beer. ;) I just love that picture of the lights reflecting on the water - so pretty!

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