Guinness tastes better in Dublin

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.

Andrew Regan is a freelance online journalist