Trip to Dublin

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monty3777

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I'm heading to Dublin in August. Besides the Guiness plant what else should a beer brewer look for in Dublin?
 
I spent 5 days there last year and had a blast. Be ready to spend about $6 on a pint. Guinness is a must, and there are tons of pubs. I liked the Boars Head and Temple Bar. You should go to the Jameson Distilery and do the tour, ask to be a wiskey taster. You get to try the Jameso, Paddys, Johnny Walker Red, and Jack. So nice. All the pubs I went in to treated me great. Enjoy your trip. You will have a good time no doubt
 
Don't forget to visit some of the rest of the country. Dublin is a bit of an entity all by itself. If you've come that far you might as well tour...
 
I've never been to Dublin, but from what I've heard you won't need to bother planning the trip. Dublin will do the planning for you. ;)
 
Don't forget to visit some of the rest of the country. Dublin is a bit of an entity all by itself. If you've come that far you might as well tour...

I agree. If you are there for more than a few days, definitely get out of Dublin. Visiting Dublin is 'ok' for a day or so but soon feels like any other big city with all the touristy crap and high prices. And the Guinness is overrated.

Galway, Kilkenny, Cork... are much better cities to visit, IMO and offer much more in terms of an authentic Irish experience. And they are easy to reach via bus/train and have better beer and pubs (esp. Cork for beer). :D
 
Galway, Kilkenny, Cork... are much better cities to visit, IMO and offer much more in terms of an authentic Irish experience. And they are easy to reach via bus/train and have better beer and pubs (esp. Cork for beer). :D

You forgot the most important one!!! :mad: :D
 
Check out the Porterhouse and have the Wrasslers 4X stout and also the Oyster Stout.

When you take the Guinness Tour, go in the morning and go directly to the High Gravity lounge and drink your freebies and enjoy the views in solitude. The lounge fills up quick and so you can finish the tour at your leisure.
 
I've been to Ireland twice now and absolutely loved it! The people are super friendly and the beer is great. As already mentioned, the Temple Bar is a must see and the Jameson distillery is very cool. Some of the bars along the river have traditional Irish music during the evenings. That's always a good time for the tourists! I spent several nights in the Knightsbridge bar listening to various Irish bands play a mix of covers and traditional Irish songs.

Just remember, when ordering pints or in any situation where you are asking for two of something, keep your palm facing the person when signaling two. I.e. peace sign, not back of the hand V. The backwards peace sign is like flipping someone off.
 
I've been to Ireland twice, and my wife and I are planning to go again soon. I agree that getting out of Dublin is a good idea. Outside of the Guinness brewery, it felt like any old big city to me.

There's so much to see - Cliffs of Mohr, Galway (where the Claddagh ring originated), Cork, Limerick, heck - even the cheesy castle/pub outside of Shannon (I forget the name). I had 10 times the fun when I wasn't in Dublin.

The Guinness is also 10 times better in Ireland than here. There's also other very good beers in Ireland, I started trying one or two - then tasted the Guinness (at the time I didn't like Guinness so I didn't start with it) and never drank anything other than that.
 
Oh and the Bull and Castle in Dublin is where the www.irishcraftbrewers.com have their monthly meet...

Just to Showcase Limerick for you a bit...

King Johns Castle:
limerick.jpg


The City Skyline:
20071030110219__mg_4060_web.jpg


The Hunt Museum:
hunt-museum2.jpg


My University:
ul.jpg
 
I'll second what everyone has all ready said. Dublin is fun for a day or two, but it's crazy expensive. The Guinness tour is a must, so is the Jameson Distillery.

I had more fun in Galway and Cork, so try to get out and see the rest of Ireland. We rented a Volvo Wagon and the driving is scary in some parts, though definitely worth having a vehicle.


PS try some Smithwicks. I probably drank more of that than Guinness.
 
My girlfriend and I are flying out to Dublin this Saturday to hang out there during St Patrick's. This is her 2nd time out. My first. We're definately going to the Guinness Brewery and the Jameson Distillery, and I want to hit the Porterhouse and a few traditional pubs like the Brazen Head on Lower Bridge Street, which is supposed to be Dublin's oldest. We're going to hit the actual Temple Bar just to do it, but will probibly stay out of the Temple Bar area for the most. We're also going to try to head outside of Dublin as well.

I'm going to keep an eye out for anything interesting as far as home/craft brewing goes. I'll be back towards the end of next week and let you know if I find anything.
 
Sorry to hijack, but I am heading to Dublin next month. It is a "no plans" trip. We fly to Dublin, then fly out of Shannon 8 nights later. Anything else we should not miss? We are most likely just sticking to the southern half.
 
It's already been recommended, but to reiterate:
- Guinness factory
- Jameson Distillery
- Temple Bar
- Porterhouse

Temple bar is right on the verge of being too touristy, but it's still pretty cool. If you want a good "full breakfast", stop by the boxty house in temple bar. We ate there sunday morning after a long pub crawl on saturday night, and there is nothing like a huge greasy breakfast to set you straight.

Boxty House - HOME OF TRADITIONAL IRISH FOOD!
Porterhouse

Here are a couple of pictures from my trip:

Some nameless pub...
IMG_4914.jpg


Now that's a mash tun!! (jameson)
IMG_4944.jpg


I spied this through a crack in a gate, on the way over to the Guinness Brewery:
IMG_4969.jpg


Mmm, guinness.
IMG_5030.jpg
 
My wife and I spent 2 weeks @ 2 years ago doing Ireland and Scotland.
Did the pubs and distilleries. There's alot of "mom and pop" distilleries on the island.
In Dublin see Trinity College and take the tour pretty fascinating at the end to see the first edition books on display. Take the train up to Belfast for a totally different Ireland. I believe it took @ 2 hrs. well worth it. Definitely rent a car and get out of Dublin asap. Stay in B&B's good prices, food, people. Check out old castle ruins. They're everywhere.
Waterford
Ring of Kerry
Kenmare
Galway
Great cities.
Have fun it's a blast.
Oh, and black pudding's not that bad. But you do get tired of the traditional breakfast's, alot of fried foods too.
 
Sorry to hijack, but I am heading to Dublin next month. It is a "no plans" trip. We fly to Dublin, then fly out of Shannon 8 nights later. Anything else we should not miss? We are most likely just sticking to the southern half.

PM me and let me know when you passing through Shannon. It's about a stones throw from Limerick.


My girlfriend and I are flying out to Dublin this Saturday to hang out there during St Patrick's.

If you do swing by the lower south/midwest let me know...


But you do get tired of the traditional breakfast's, alot of fried foods too.

Ah, no you don't... In fact I may just go get one now (I was out last night) :D
 
As a native of sunny Dublin, I would recommend three bars for you to get your hands off the guinness for a bit and on to some really great Irish craft brews, and the rest. I would recommend three pubs The Porterhouse (Brew Pub), Messrs Maguires, and The Bull & Castle. the Porterhouse does some truly fantastic stouts and a generous bottle selection, in the link below you can see a list of their beers. Messrs Maguires, is really your average pub, not fantastic but they will usually have about four of their own beers on, their stouts are great. The Bull & Castle, my personal favorite has plenty of room upstairs in the form of their Beer Hall, lots of Irish craft brews and a good bottle selection too. See links below

Porterhouse



[url=http://www.messrsmaguire.ie/]Messrrs Maguire -O'Connell Bridge - Burgh Quay, Dublin 2


Hope this helps, sadly enough I find it really hard to recommend more than these three pubs in regards to good selection and craft beer. Of course, there are lots of great pubs in Ireland, and for the most part there is great atmosphere, but we are suffering badly in terms of good beer selection. We are definitely a macro Nation right now, but things are looking up. If you have any trouble finding these places, I'd be happy to meet you for a pint and show you around.

Cheers
Graeme
 
Porterhouse Brewpub! There is one at the river end of Grafton Street and another out near the airport. Great selection and beer prices aren't TOO bad, considering it's Europe...sort of. Also, The Ravenshead (I think!), a pub a few blocks north Templebar, had pretty good prices, very low doorways, and good food. I think. I was there last month, but I was fairly well faced.:mug:
 
I was told by a relative that Cobh is a great little secret on the southern coast. Anyone able to speak to that? Is it worth a stop off?
 
+1 on going to Galway. If I were to do it again, I would skip Temple Bar. Or maybe have ONE pint. That's where you'll pay $6 a pint. Outside this area and outside Dublin it is more reasonable (I think it was around 3 EUR when I was there). Galway is amazing, and I definitely want to go back and sit on the terraces on Quay Street! Sigh....
 
Well Katokiyo, it all depends on whether or not you are looking to drink good beer or bad beer, if you want good beer, then I'm afraid you certainly don't want to be skipping Temple Bar because the main Porterhouse is in Temple Bar, not only that but the Bull & Castle which is on par with the Porterhouse in my opinion is very close too. As I said previously, you can't really go too wrong with pubs in Ireland, Galway, Cork, all have lovely cosy pubs, yes more reasonably priced beers, but for the most part, don't expect anything more than Guinness, because you simply won't get it. Cork wise I would recommend the highly praised Bierhaus: The Bierhaus Cork - about us
 
Cobh by the way is absolutely gorgous, I couldn't recommend it more highly, it's a beautiful place, definitely go if you can
 
WOW - what a lot of great responses. I guess I'm a little naive - I wasn't expecting to hear from people who actually live in Dublin. This is a great board! Two more questions - this on is about pub etiquette. Do you tip the bartender? Here I usually leave $1 per round. What does one do in Ireland to avoid being an ugly American? Also, will I need Euros or do pubs typically accept debit/credit cards?
 
oooh almost forgot. Check out the Gaelic Games HOF at Croke Park. Believe it or not there is quite a bit of political history involved with the games.
See a game of Hurling or Gaelic football. Not sure about the season.

Adopt a team as your own and buy a jersey. I adopted Kerry because they best fit with the Green Bay Packers.

:( Sorry Jackie-Boys :D
 
Monty, it is not customary to tip bartenders in Ireland, in fact it's quite unheard of for the most part. If for example someone is working the tables and I make an order and they bring down the drinks, I would always tip them something, doesn't have to be anything big, 2 euros would do it. But bartender, generally not. 99% of pubs will accept your debit card without a bother, I never really look at American tourists as 'Ugly Americans' lol! I guess Americans might have the rep of being a little loud, personally I never thought so, we are loud bunch ourselves as you will find out, and there are so many tourists in Dublin, that it really doesn't matter anyway, just go, enjoy yourself and drink some good beers, if you need any advice what so ever, drop me a personal message
 
Also Monty, It would be allot more practical if you were to get euros, you don't want to have to rely on your cards the whole time, you'll definitely need change available for various reasons, especially if you are looking at doing the hop on/hop off bus tours etc
 
Debit cards have made life a lot easier for travellers. Check with your bank first to make sure they're not going to put any holds on your accounts for out-of-country transactions, and then use your debit card as you would normally. You'll get currency in whatever denomination you need, with no worry about finding a currency exchange, or fees, or rates.

On top of that, your bank will usually use a very competitive exchange rate. After returning home from 10 days in ireland and england in 2006, the rates I was given were the same as quoted online with no fees. Unfortunately the rate was going up while I was there... 100 pounds cost me USD $5 more on the last day of the trip than the first!

My bank is Wells Fargo, FWIW.
 
just got back from ireland. We had a great time. We stayed at 3 different hotels in limerick, sligo and dublin. And dublin was our least favorite spot, not into the big city scene. We went to the bushmills distillery which was awesome. I didn't like the guiness tour as much since it wasn't the real brewery just sort of a museum, the old advertisements were pretty cool, though. And i thought the guiness was so much better there, heck even the swmbo almost finished a pint, and she hates beer. Don't miss out on the guiness foreign extra stout. I picked up a few bottles cause i've never seen it here in the us.
 
The Guinness tour is very disappointing, but you have to remember you are touring a factory not a brewery as such! Guinness is as Macro as you can get really, I never really understood the romantic idea of Guinness and what a magical and original stout it is, that statement may have held some truth decades ago, but Guinness is now affectively Diageo, Europes answer to A&B, none of the Guinness family have a stake in the company anymore. However, the foreign extra stout is one of the best I have tasted, it's a real gem!
 
I'd advise the Bull and Castle, be sure to try the Galway Hooker IPA, it's a delicious beer.
While it's not customary for the Irish to tip in bars, it's certainly appreciated, and almost expected that US tourists will drop a few euros, especially if you have a meal, I would tip but then I worked in hospitality for a long time, I'd not bother tipping if I was just drinking though unless it was a hotel.
 
So, at the risk of hijacking a thread that may have just gone into retirement, my fiance and I are going to Dublin Thursday for six days. (We got a ridiculously good deal on a flight/hotel package, which I can only assume is because few people opt to travel to Ireland 2 days after St. Paddys).
Anyway, the consensus seems to be that we should get out of Dublin proper as much as possible and I had some questions concerning that.

Basically, since we have the hotel paid for, we'd like to take a few day trips where we'd wind back up in Dublin at night. I've found some day tours that go to coastal sites north and south of Dublin as well as a rail tour that goes to Cork and one that goes to Galway. Is it possible to go from Dublin to Galway and back in the same day and have enough time to enjoy oneself? Should we skip the tour and maybe just get a roundtrip rail ticket? Or, should we rent a car and drive? Any recommendations or tips about renting a car or traveling around Ireland?
 
Just got back from my trip and thought I'd offer an update. Beer in Temple Bar is an absolute rip off. At the pub The Temple Bar it was around $9. The area is a ****ehole once the travelling college students descend on the place in the evening and I avoided it like the plague. Also got tricked into going to Johnnie Foxes - what a complete rip off. But other than that it was one of my favorite cities. I liked the Guinness - totally different that what can be drunk in US - and also loved the Bulmer's Cider. In fact I'm on a bit of a cider kick right now. We didn't discover Leo Burdochs (sp?) fish and chips until our last night there, unfortunately. Awesome! BTW, Celtic Whisky Shop is also amazing!
 
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