Guinness Tastes Better In Dublin

Guinness Tastes Better In Dublin
By Elisha Burberry

Guinness is the world’s most popular dark stout and is named after Arthur Guinness - the man who first brewed his Irish ale over 250 years ago at the St. James Gate brewery in Dublin. Ask any Irishman and they’ll tell you that there is no place like the Irish capital in which to drink Guinness; not only does it taste better than anywhere else in the world, but you also get to experience the legendary Irish ‘craic’!

St. James Gate sits close to the River Liffey and is a big stone arch that has been the symbolic entrance to the Guinness Brewery for almost two and a half centuries. The brewery in the heart of Dublin now extends over 64 acres and not only does it provide Guinness for the whole of Ireland, but also the USA and many other parts of the World. It is so much more than a working brewery as it also includes a spectacular visitor centre boasting two restaurants, three bars and a shop.

The founder of it all, Arthur Guinness, benefited from a £100 inheritance early in life and decided to invest that windfall in brewing. By the age of 31, he had established a successful brewery at Leixlip, just outside Dublin. However, the lure of the big city proved irresistible. Leaving the Leixlip brewery in the safe hands of his younger brother, Arthur Guinness set off for Dublin in 1759 with the ambition of hitting the big time. Seventeen years before the USA declared Independence from Britain, Guinness took out a 9,000 year lease on the St. James Gate brewery, providing an initial £100 deposit and promising to pay rent at £45 per year.

Arthur Guinness passed away in 1803 and his son Arthur Guinness II took over the reigns of running Ireland’s second most successful brewery. By the time Congress adopted the Stars and Stripes as the US flag in 1818, Guinness was already exporting barrels of its stout to Portugal, followed two years later by exports to Barbados, Sierra Leone, Trinidad and Guernsey. By the 1830s, output from the St. James Brewery overtook that of Beamish in Cork, making it Ireland’s biggest brewery. By 1886 it had become the largest brewery in the world producing 1.2 million barrels annually. The rest, as they say, is history!

Perhaps it was Arthur Guinness’ hunger for the big city and extensive knowledge of brewing that enabled him to perfectly brew a beer containing the legendary spirit of the craic? But whatever his secret, you’ll find many visitors from all over the world trying to find a hotel in Dublin that is ideally located to enjoy both the best of the city’s hospitality and Arthur’s magnificent brewery.

Elisha Burberry is a freelance writer who loves her job and the occasional glass of red wine.

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Pub where you can serve yourself pints!

It’s every drinkers dream! The Baggot Inn, one of Dublin’s oldest pubs reopened last week after eight years offering the chance to pour your own pint of Guinness.The act of pouring a good Guinness has become an art-form and bartenders are specially trained by Guinness to pour the black stuff.

But now customers can sit around a table with six to eight friends and pour Guinness from a tab, the first time it has been done in the world. Bartenders have been trained to teach customers how to pour pints, while instructions on each table, “the six steps to perfection”, will help amateur pint-pullers.

The Baggot, the oldest pub on Dublin’s Baggot Street and steeped in musical history, was first licensed in 1700 but closed its doors eight years ago. In the Baggot Inn:

- Bono was once turned away from its doors for looking to young until he told the doorman he was the lead singer of the band for the evening

- Tracy Chapman launched her career here

- Bob Geldof had to beg for a month before he was allowed to play a gig

- Fresh from recording studio, David Bowie performed here just to try out new material on a live audience.

Is the era of Guinness coming to an end?

Lent, finishing next week, is a time when many people in Ireland make sacrifice until Easter Sunday. Quite few gave up drinking alcohol for several weeks, though some made exception for St. Patrick’s Day.

But that’s not the main reason of falling Guinness sale (the 2006 figures for Ireland and Britain show a drop of 7%, continuing a trend that began years ago). The scale of the shift from drinking Guinness, which takes its dark colour from the roasted barley, appears even more dramatic given that Ireland has the fastest growing population in the European Union.

Some people blame the trend on the Irish Republic's smoking ban in pubs; others say it has to do with a crackdown on drink-driving. The main reason however is changing life-style as new wealth, new opportunities and immigration transform tastes and drinking habits in Ireland.

Alongside the decline of Guinness is an increasing appetite for wine, spirits, cider and imported beer. People are drinking more alcohol at home and are mainly choosing wine.

Is the era of Irish pubs filled with Guinness drinkers coming to end? Probably yes, but let’s hope that even when serving wheat bears from Czech Republic or …… Chardonney pubs won’t lose their unique and friendly atmosphere.