Lovely Day for a Guinness

What’s the first thing you do as tourists in Dublin with a toddler? Why a brewery, of course. More specifically the Guinness Storehouse.

Having arrived in Dublin before 6:00 am local time and around 1:00am Eastern, our first priority was sleep, both for us and for Ella. None of us had any trouble getting to sleep, but it was a struggle when we forced ourselves to get up around 9:30am.

In our zombie like state we managed to get out to wander around the area outside our apartment, get some groceries at the local supermarket, and get Katy and me a tea and coffee respectively. Fortunately that got us close to 1:00pm, Ella’s nap time, and on this day, ours as well.

Sláinte

Fully rested, well, at least as fully rested as we were going to get, we headed out for our first activity during this brief stop in Dublin, a tour of the Guinness Storehouse. I won’t lie, this wasn’t my first brewery tour, but it was my first with a toddler in tow. So, what’s different? Honestly, not all that much. 

First, you need to find stroller parking. They will let you take the stroller through the Storehouse, but as it is seven stories, we didn’t think it would be worth the hassle. Looking back, we were right. Though there are elevators between floors, having to find them and wait each time would have been a pain. The carrier and occasional freedom for Ella were much better. 

Second, though Guinness actually does a really good job in education, including the brewing process, various aspects of the history and business, along with tasting and pouring a pint, Ella’s attention span meant that we didn’t take full advantage. We did manage to stop at the advertising exhibit and have a family picture/Guinness ad taken. Unfortunately, the guy who was nice enough to take it for us, didn’t get the angle right so I suspect you’ll be able to see it’s not a real ad. 

More importantly, Ella let us go through the tasting experience and learn how to properly taste a Guinness. It turns out that I’ve been doing it right all along. Unfortunately, despite the help, Katy didn’t quite get the hang of it. In fact, I think she and Ella made the same face when they tasted it. They even had Ella sized glasses.

Even more importantly, we finished the tour up at one of the 4 bars on the top two floors where they had David sized pints and I was able to enjoy both mine and Katy’s. Not to be left out, Ella insisted on dipping her finger in my Guinness for a taste. Despite her predictable reaction, slightly less disgust than Katy, she went back for more and licked some extra off of her palm. I’m not sure I can embed the video in the wordpress app, but here’s a link if you want to watch.

We then made a quick stop at a bar between the Guinness Storehouse and our apartment for dinner and then it was back to bed for us all. Up next, an early train ride to Cork.