I have been watching the Guinness Open Gate Brewery development in central Covent Garden for what seems like ages, so I was keen to finally get inside and take a look around. The opportunity came up this weekend when my sister-in-law managed to grab a couple of free tickets via an Irish travel email list she subscribes to.
I do like a pint of Guinness, and while I’ve been whiskey tasting in Raasay, wine tasting in the Barossa valley and olive oil tasting in Lefkada, I had never sampled a flight of beers! The visit was split into three phases; a tour around the brewery facility, a tasting, and a hands-on session covering how to properly pour a Guinness. While they make a wide selection of beers on-site, they don’t actually brew Guinness here.
A bit of brewing trivia that came up during the walkaround: Old Brewer’s Yard actually has brewing roots stretching back over 300 years to 1722, when it was the Woodyard Brewery (and later Combe & Co., one of the 18th-century powerhouses of the London porter boom). In a circular bit of brewing history, Arthur Guinness was originally inspired by those very London porters when developing the recipe for his stout in Dublin. Even later, around 1901, Guinness Extra Stout was bottled on this site. While the London location serves as an experimental microbrewery alongside sister Open Gate sites in Dublin, Baltimore, and Chicago, every drop of standard draught Guinness on tap is still shipped over directly from St. James’s Gate in Dublin.
Following the tour, we moved on to the tasting session, which consisted of four of their site-specific brews:
- The Brewer’s Lager
- Covent Classic IPA
- Piazza Pale Ale
- Old Brewer’s Yard Porter
The Piazza Pale Ale was the favourite with the porter a close second.
The experience wrapped up with a practical, hands-on session covering how to properly pour a Guinness. The team running both the tour and the tasting were excellent—they brought loads of energy and made the whole process genuinely good fun. I would definitely recommend a visit if you are in the area, and I am already thinking about organising a work trip down there. For those interested, more details on the Open Gate experience can be found here.
As an extra treat from the sister-in-law we had a final pint printed by the Stoutie machine.
Full set of photos from the day over on Flickr.
In other news, got a couple more 101 Things I Learned books in prep for the new teaching year.
Looking at links.duncanwilson.com, these parts of the internet crossed my path this week:
- teaching to see by Inge Druckrey - vimeo, worth a watch
- life during war film of David Byrne performance incl ICE - excellent watch, would love to see this live
- downloaded Aerospace on the recomendation of Finn - desktop screen workflow for mac