The Guinness Connoisseur Experience

A tour of the Guinness Storehouse is a must on a trip to Dublin, Ireland. Guinness is an Irish institution with pubs around the country proudly serving up the delicious brews just how they were intended – beautifully dark, foamy, and logo facing out. Although the Guinness Storehouse does offer the standard tour which allows you walking rights around the storehouse, the Guinness Connoisseur Experience is the VIP tour – and really the only way to go.

With tickets for the Guinness Connoisseur Experience you also have access to the rest of the storehouse and can take your own walking tour just as you could with general admission. KB and I arrived at Guinness and followed the storyboard clad paths through the storehouse detailing out how Guinness is made from start to finish. While the process of fermentation is interesting, the tour itself was fairly short and not all that engaging. The avid beer drinker will love the details laid out in the standard tour, but the rest of us tourists who only came to the storehouse because it’s basically a Dublin landmark find ourselves greatly disappointed (and just a little bored). Even KB, whose favorite beer is the Guinness Draught, found the tour less than stellar.

After we finished up our walk through the storehouse we made our way to the meeting spot for the Guinness Connoisseur Experience. Our guide led us, along with one other couple, through the halls until we came to an average looking cream colored wall with a barely noticeable door. As if unveiling the Chamber of Secrets, our guide ushered us through the door and into the Connoisseur Bar – a stunning, academic style private bar all for us.

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The Guinness Connoisseur Experience grants you 1.5 hours in the beautiful private bar and four full glasses of different Guinness brews. Not only did we get exclusive tastings, but we were actually invited behind the bar to pour our own perfect pints. KB was loving it and even though I’m not a big beer drinker the experience was unforgettable! The tour is fairly new, so we were even able to sign our names to the guestbook!

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Do you have an upcoming trip to Ireland? What sights do you plan to see?

xoxo Blonde