Ryan and I stopped by the Guinness Factory in Dublin last month.
The Guinness Museum is actually housed in an 8-story tall building that is the shape of a giant Guinness glass which was sort of cool.
There's a 5-minute long, old black and white film that plays on a loop all about how the barrels used to be made by hand onsite. Ryan's been here before and this is actually his favorite part of the whole tour.
Guinness only uses a particular strain of yeast and they apparently keep some backup samples of it locked up in a vault on the premises.
The harp.
Little known fact of the day:
In 1951, a guy who ran the Guinness brewery got in an argument with a friend over what the fastest gamebird in Europe was. Unfortunately, he couldn't find any reference book in the library to solve this debate. He knew that countless arguments like his were going on every night in pubs all over Ireland. So he commissioned a couple of brothers from a fact-finding agency to compile a book of these types of facts. The book was originally given away for free as a marketing promotion, however once offered for sale it quickly became a bestseller in both Europe and the United States. The compilation was called The Guinness Book of Records.
Weird right? I never put together that the beer and world record people were one in the same.
The bar atop the Guinness Museum has floor-to-ceiling glass walls and 360ยบ views of Dublin. And everyone up there drinks the same thing. (Except me, because I don't drink beer)
Cheers.
