Summary
Right, now where was I?
Oh yes, carrying on from the first part of this post, our starters had just arrived at The Connoisseur Bar in the Guinness Storehouse and they’d disappeared down our greedy gobs much quicker than they’d arrived!
Wild Atlantic Seafood Chowder
Next up, we had the wild Atlantic seafood chowder with a sprinkling of Carragheen Irish Moss – paired with Guinness Extra Stout.
Guinness Foreign Extra Stout
Then, the bad boy of the lot showed up – the Guinness Foreign Extra Stout.
This one has the strongest alcohol content of the lot and arguably, the richest taste in my opinion – though I have to caveat, I’d had a couple of Guinnesses by this point so…
Main Course
Chunky root vegetable and quinoa stew with overnight braised daube of Irish beef – paired with that tasty Foreign Extra Stout.
The Guinness bottle counts soon started piling up… (along with my merriness levels)
Learning to Pull a Perfect Pint
Dessert was due to be served with a pint and seeing as I was the only one in the room who’d actually visited another Guinness plant in a different country (in Lagos, Nigeria to be precise – though that’s a story for another day), I asked to be the first one to pull a proper pint of Guinness.
A task I very happily obliged to do!
Visiting the Gravity Bar
Things started off okay…
…until I realised I’d been so excited about pulling my first pint that I hadn’t actually paid attention to anything he’d said about how to pull the perfect pint.
I stopped for a refresher course on pulling the perfect pint. Here’s what I found out the second time around.
- Look for the golden Guinness harp on the pint and aim at it (at a 45-degree angle) without touching the glass with the spout.
- Turn on the tap, and when the Guinness fills up to the harp, turn the pint glass flat to level it out.
- Stop and let it settle for a little bit.
- Fill the glass up after it has settled but don’t let the spout go in the pint (Remember – Spout out of the stout)
Random aside: Do NOT draw a shamrock. I’ve been reliably informed that this is not quite as ‘cool’ as we’d been led to believe. Hehe! 🙂
Lloyd also had this chance to have a go. As it turns out – he’s quite a natural at it!
Gravity Bar with Fantastic Views
After pulling the perfect pint, we headed for the Gravity Bar which offers fantastic views over all of Dublin.
We didn’t stick around for much longer than it takes to drink a pint as we knew we would be back here again later in the evening for a good old knees-up at the party later that night.
Exploring the Open Gate Brewery
We headed next for the Open Gate Brewery which is sorta like the experimentation side of things where local brewers get the chance to show off their brewing skills. This has been the case for over 100 years and it’s only recently just opened to the public.
You can never really guarantee what you’ll find here and how long it’ll be available for (it’s all about experimentation after all) but it’s always good craic (see, I’m already turning Irish) and totally worth visiting.
Oh, and it’s only €6 entry (which includes drinks) so you can’t really beat it when it comes to value for money.
Final Thoughts
After a series of tasting sessions, we finished off our tour and headed straight for our hotels to freshen up, quickly write this post, and prepare for our night out in good old Dublin.
