A once-in-a-lifetime experience, Guinness lovers will go into underground tunnels for the first time, marvel at modern technology at Brewhouse 4, perfect the art of pouring beautiful Guinness, enjoy a hosted food and beer experience at Guinness Storehouse and finish with a Guinness overlooking Dublin’s skyline at the Gravity bar. Curated especially for the “history buff” in us all, the new tour is sure to fully immerse visitors into the magical world of Guinness.
The Guinness Storehouse tells the story of one of Ireland’s most loved brands, Guinness. Visitors from Ireland and abroad discover what goes into making each pint, learn about the incredible brand history stretching over 260 years, its iconic advertising, as well as a tasting like no other. The experience unfolds across seven floors, including the highlight for many visitors – the famous Gravity Bar, where visitors can enjoy unparalleled panoramic 360⁰ views of Dublin city. As well as the incredible history, learn about the future of Guinness and its most recent innovations including Guinness Nitro Surge, Guinness Microdraught and Guinness 0.0.
The Guinness Storehouse was voted the World’s Leading Beer Tour Visitor Attraction 2022 at the World Travel Awards. In the same year, the Guinness Storehouse served over 900,000 pints of Guinness, certified 86,000 pint pouring experts, printed 110,000 STOUTies on top of creamy pints of Guinness and was home to 11 (successful) marriage proposals.
The Guinness Storehouse is located in the heart of Dublin’s Liberties, an area renowned for its brewing and distilling history. Just metres from the Home of Guinness is the Guinness Open Gate Brewery, an experimental taproom and brewery where brewers are given the creative license to dream in beer. Across the way is the Roe&Co Distillery, the home of cocktail exploration and modern Irish whiskey.
Fun Facts
- The Guinness Storehouse, the Home of Guinness, opened in December 2000 as a public visitor centre.
- The Storehouse was originally erected between 1902 and 1904 by Arthur Guinness & Son Co. Ltd for use as a fermentation house. Fermentation is the last stage of the brewing process where yeast is added to the boiled mixture of barley, water, hops and allowed to ferment.
- The building is reputedly the first steel framed building in the British Isles to be built in the Chicago style, whereby the walls act as a barrier to the elements with steel girders forming the main structure of the building. The second such building to be built in this manner in the British Isles was the Ritz hotel in London.
- The Chicago School were a group of architects based in Chicago led by Frederick Bauman and William le Baron Jenny, who built high rise buildings without using the heavy load bearing walls frequently used during that period.
- The steel for the building was provided by Sir William Arrol and Company who was also responsible for the steel on the Firth of Forth railway bridge in Scotland.
- The Storehouse was converted into a sterile plant in the 1950s when the wooden tuns (large vessels to hold fermenting beer made of oak or pine) were replaced by aluminium ones.
- The Storehouse housed the largest tun in the world, which had a capacity of 7,800 barrels of beer. The overall capacity of the Storehouse in 1960 was 39,300 barrels.
- By the 1980s, the plant was over 30 years old and unsuitable for adapting to modern brewing processes. The decision was made to relocate the fermentation plant to a new facility elsewhere on the St. James’s Gate site and the Storehouse finally closed its doors in 1986.
- In October 1997 plans were accepted to develop the 125ft high Guinness Storehouse into a public visitors’ centre. The visitor experience took four years to create and since opening in 2000, has welcomed more than 23Million visitors from all over the world.
- In 2019, the last full year of trading pre-Covid, the Guinness Storehouse welcomed 1.7million visitors, 93% of which were from international markets.
- In 2022, the first full year of trading post-Covid, the Storehouse welcomed 1.1million visitors, 76% of which were international visitors and 24% domestic. The shift in audience is reflective of the domestic audience’s desire to explore their own cities and to engage with cultural institutions closer to home.
- The Guinness Storehouse is spread across 7 floors, culminating in the Gravity bar, standing at 46m high, which gives visitors unrivalled panoramic views over Dublin City. In 2020, just weeks before Ireland’s first pandemic-related lockdown, the Guinness Storehouse unveiled a major extension to the Gravity bar which officially opened by then Duke and Duchess of Cambridge William and Kate.
- It would take nearly 4million pints of Guinness to fill the Gravity bar and the bar is as tall as 300 pints.
- Over the years, the Guinness Storehouse has welcomed many famous guests and fans of Guinness including Queen Elizabeth II, Bill Clinton, Tom Cruise, Will Ferrell and Kylie Minogue.
