The Guinness Hopstore

Please note! Yep, another DFA Guide article that is a couple years out of date. Guinness now have a Storehouse, rather than a Hopstore. Hopefully something below will still be relevant. Thanks, Mick

OK, I’ll cast the romantic stuff aside for a minute. The real reason I have emigrated to Dublin is for the beer. This may sound like a trivial reason, to many sensible Americans, but that is only because Americans do not know what real beer is.

The only true Beer is that heavenly black stuff, Guinness. For those who have never tried it, for those who have not been imbued with the strength and fortitude resurgent in each drop of sweet porter, the mere sight of this beer glass full of motor oil may cause the spine to weaken and courage to flee. Fear not! Try some.

OK, you’ll hate it. Admittedly, Guinness is an acquired taste. I myself left my first pint unfinished. Try it again, and again and again. You will become a happy convert and an evangelist. You will become as I am, just as I was once as you are now.

For we who have found enlightenment within that darkest of pints, a visit to the Hopstore is a must. The Hopstore is one building on Guinness’s 64-acre St. James's Gate Brewery, still smelling overpoweringly of the hops which have not been stored there for twenty-odd years. Visitors can no longer tour the brewery itself, owing to modern hygiene regulations and ultra-modern automation that has largely removed anything neat to see. The three levels Hopstore display (top to bottom) an overview of Guinness history since Sir Arthur brewed his first in 1759, and next a guided tour of the magic process which transforms barley, hops, yeast and water into that happy astral nectar. Then on the bottom floor, each tourist is treated to a refreshing pint of the black. Ah!

My friend Keg and I got a blast out of the tour, £5 a small price to pay for a guided tour, pure black pint, and all sorts of neat Guinness- related trivia. We thought it was astounding (for instance) that workers would only be allowed to stack the hops for three hours a day, as these plants have natural soporific effects that relax unsuspecting handlers to sleep. Those who are not (yet) reverential Guinness fans will just find the Hopstore a stuffy, boring stagger through a crowded unpleasant-smelling building. Alas, the damage! Just like bad moonshine, Budweiser causes such terrible blindness! All Budweiser should be poured back into the urinals from whence it came. But that’s sort of getting off the subject of the Guinness Hopstore.

- Added to the DFA Guide, January 2000.

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