In the morning, we had set out from our hotel in the northeast corner of Dublin. We walked in a sort of southwesterly fashion so we could walk down O’Connell Street, and see the old Post Office on our way to Trinity College. Now that we had seen Trinity, we decided to stay on foot – even tho we were extremely tired – and walk due west along the River Liffey towards the Guinness Brewery. This allowed us to walk past Christ Church; a massive, thousand year old Cathedral that became a Protestant church when Henry VIII split from Rome in the sixteenth century.
We took a moment to ponder the hand-carved archways, the flying buttresses, and vast amount of stonework. I was in total awe of this building because I thought it was all done a thousand years ago. But apparently there have been multiple renovations and additions over the years. So a lot of the architectural design may only be a couple centuries old. Ho hum.
We continued west along the River Liffey, snapping pictures of random old buildings, interesting people, and signage, until we reached the gates of the Guinness Brewery. The brewery occupies multiple city blocks on the west side of town. We had to walk four blocks just to get from the outside gate to the main building for tourists.
The tour was mildly entertaining. A self-guided tour that cost 15 Euros. It started with lessons on the four main ingredients needed to brew beer: barley, hops, yeast, and water. This section was interesting because they illustrated the amount of each ingredient they use on a yearly basis. Numbers that I can’t remember, but they are truly staggering. Guinness brews a lot of beer. The next part of the tour was about the milling and the mashing. Then the filtering, the boiling, and the fermenting. After we learned a little about the brewing process, we learned about the packaging and shipping. And, of course, we learned the history of the Guinness family...they were Irish, or something.
Each section of the tour was on its own floor in the building, so by the time we finished the tour, we had ascended six floors. On the seventh floor - the top floor of the building - was the final part of the tour...the tasting room! Every participant was given a free pint in the tasting room. And the room itself was quite spectacular. At seven stories high, it is one of the highest view points in the entire city. (You read that right. I only saw one building in the entire city that was more than six stories tall.)
The Tasting Room is circular; with walls of glass from floor to ceiling to give you a 360 degree view of the city. The glass walls have some text sketched into them that describe what building you might be looking at beyond the glass.
The room was quite crowded. Lara and I walked around several times, and after ten minutes of jockeying, we found a corner of a table to stand next to. No chairs, but at least we had something to put our beers, hats, and cameras on. It wasn’t much, but it was helpful. Lara went to the bar to retrieve our free pints while I guarded the table. I took off my hat and realized that it was about three PM local time (ten AM Florida time). We left Lara’s apartment in Tampa about twenty-four hours ago. It was hard to believe that it was exactly one day later. It felt like a lifetime ago.
As I pondered my exhaustion, I saw Lara walking towards me with two full pint glasses and a big smile on her face. She must have been as excited as I was to sample this beer that we had been learning about for the last two hours. We raised our glasses, said the Irish word for cheers (“Slainte”), and clinked our glasses together. I must have sucked down half the pint in one drink. Thirsty. A wave of tranquility washed over me and I had to lean heavily on our little corner of the table. Man oh man, that tasted good.
After a couple minutes of standing and drinking in silent bliss, we saw a couple of chairs open up on the other side of the room. We rushed over at lightning speed and threw ourselves into them. If I was carrying a sword, I would have chopped off a man’s hand to get those chairs. Luckily, no one issued a challenge to us. We finished our beers in total rapture, slumped over in our thrones, laughing at the lowly peasants that were forced to stand around us.
Another couple from America was sitting down next to us and we sparked up a conversation. The girl’s name was Tinley and the guy said his name was Rejee. They told us they were from New York City. I told Rejee that he had an interesting name. He said it wasn’t all that interesting. It is actually spelled “Regis”, but since his family was French, they pronounced it “Rejee”. Since I am from the Midwest, I pronounced it Reggie for the remainder of the day. That’s the best I can do.
Reggie and Tinley had just arrived in town as well, and we traded itineraries. We enjoyed their company and wanted to continue the tasting room rapture, but we had drunk all of our beer. I watched our new friends finish their beer shortly after us. We all looked at each other and verbally agreed that we all needed another beer.
Reggie and I went to the bar and asked for another round. The bartender apologized and said we could only have one per person at the tasting room. I was dejected. But as I was deciding whether or not to begin begging, the bartender asked us if we had been to the Pouring Room yet. Reggie and I simultaneously shook our heads. The bartender smiled at us and said quite simply, “down one floor”.
We found a stairwell and descended one level. We entered into a totally empty bar: the Pouring Room. I had been told at the beginning of the tour that everyone had to choose either the Pouring Room or the Tasting Room at the end of the tour. You could either learn how to pour the perfect pint, or you could just drink the perfect pint. On that particular day, it looked like not one single person chose to learn how to pour the perfect pint.
Reggie and I walked into this empty Pouring Room and approached the bar. A bartender showed us how to perform the perfect pour. When he was done there was a full beer sitting on the bar. Since there were two of us, he asked us if we wanted another. We were very grateful and we said yes please. And as a matter fact, we could really use two more pints on top of that. He gave us a sideways look as he poured beer number two. When he was finished pouring that beer, he looked around the room as if to make sure the coast was clear. Then he started pouring beer number three. As he finished pouring beer number three and four, he asked us for 8 Euro. We gladly paid him. He said, “Slainte”, and we walked back up the stairs with two pints each.
We returned to the Tasting Room triumphant. We gave our girlfriends their pints and we sat and talked for another hour.
When we were all done with our beverages, Lara and I said fare thee well to our new friends and we set out for our next destination. We were content with our sightseeing conquests for the day, but we still needed to get some supper.
We knew that there was a large train station - Heuston Station - nearby. And we knew that we could take a light rail train back across the city to the east side to Trinity College, O’Connell Street, and Temple Bar.
Temple Bar is the hip bar district where all the action is at night. Since it was getting dark, we decided we should partake in that action. We meandered our way out of the brewery and down some empty side streets until we found the Heuston Train Station. We jumped on the light rail for 1.5 Euro a piece and rode it back across the city. The train was clean and full of work commuters. We disembarked near Temple Bar and ducked into a large tavern that looked inviting.
We ordered a round of Guinness to celebrate our successful day of sightseeing...and the fact that we didn’t succumb to jet lag. I ordered Irish stew for my supper. It had large chunks of lamb, potatoes, and carrots. It was delicious. I can’t remember what Lara ordered. It was some kind of soup. I don’t think it was as delicious as my Irish stew. We enjoyed our supper while we watched English Premier League soccer.
After supper, we walked back to our hotel. We got on the internet to send notes to our family and to make our plans for the next day. We found train tickets to the city of Cork for 30 Euros per person. The train would leave at ten AM and arrive in Cork around one PM. This seemed like the perfect time and perfect price, but for some reason, we didn’t purchase the tickets right then. We decided to wait and purchase the tickets when we got to the station in the morning. We would find out the next morning that this was a pretty stupid decision.
No comments:
Post a Comment