A Lovely Day for a Guinness

Many of you are familiar with Roald Dahl's children's book Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, and undoubtedly most of you have probably watched the Gene Wilder classic film in which the lucky finders of five Golden Tickets are able to tour Wonka's mysterious and previously inaccessible chocolate factory, accompanied by one of their family members, including the ultimate freeloader, Grandpa Joe.

You may also remember the wonder, enthusiasm and general mania that surrounded the children when the doors of the factory were swung wide, exposing the group to all the magical mysteries that lie within.

Rekindled those memories?  Good.  Now perhaps you'll understand how this foursome felt on the morning when we got to tour the fabled Guinness Storehouse in Dublin.

You can practically see us all channeling our inner Augustus Gloop outside the doors, just waiting for our chance to fall into the chocolate river.

Guinness is a stout that originated in the brewery of Arthur Guinness at St. James's Gate, Dublin, in the 18th century. It's become synonymous with Irish pubs, and indeed, Irish drinkers in general.

Nearly a century ago, in addition to touting its health benefits, an advertising campaign was launched pronouncing that every day was a "Lovely Day for a Guinness."

So, not surprisingly, all of the floors of the factory tour are papered with various iterations of the ad campaign, with the slogan front and center on tee-shirts, bar signs, kitchen accessories and socks, among a plethora of souvenirs.

Just as the self-guided tour began, we were able to pose before the fabled gates of Wonka's factory.

Was it a coincidence to discover a Spence of Dublin commemorative marker on the tour?  I think not.

Raw Power or The Roar of Raw Noise.  You make the call.

On to the samples segment of the tour- served up in tiny shot glasses.

 My fellow U2 fans will recognize the Tryin' to Throw Your Arms Around the World lyrics that accompany this particular piece of abstract art, also part of Guinness' advertising legacy.

Finally, it was on to one of the most critical events of our Ireland sojourn.  The art of learning how to correctly pour a Guinness.  At the end of our class, diplomas/certificates await!
Our pourmeister was Philip who painstakingly and passionately explained the art of pouring to his rapt students.

One of the necessary steps is inspecting your glass before pouring.  My eagle-eyed wife found stains upon her glass, so she got extra brownie points for her sharp inspection.

For those of you who don't have a bonafide Guinness pouring diploma in your curriculum vitae, here's what you need to know:

To begin the pour, hold the glass at a 45° angle below the tap and fills the glass 3/4 full.  On the way out of the tap, the beer is forced at high speed through the end of the tap, creating friction and forcing the creation of small nitrogen bubbles which form a creamy head. (Use the harp logo on the glass to help measure the amount of your pour.) The server brings the glass from 45° angle to a vertical position.  After allowing the initial pour to settle, the server pushes the tap handle back and fills the remainder of the glass until the head forms a slight dome over the top of the glass (or "just proud of the rim").

And yes, we all graduated.  And then got to enjoy the spoils of our accelerated education.  Slainte!

A view of Dublin from atop the Guinness Storehouse.

And unlike Augustus Gloop, Violet Beauregard, Veruca Salt and Mike Teevee, this foursome all made it out of the factory intact.  We didn't score our own glass elevator or chocolate factory like Charlie Bucket, but in the end, we felt like we did alright for ourselves.

We weren't able to pay equal time to the Jameson whiskey factory, though we did manage to pass through to pick up a bottle of the highly-coveted and labelled Ryan Fandl whiskey!

Many of you may be familiar with the ballad of fishwife Molly Malone, who wheeled her wheelbarrow through streets broad and narrow crying cockles and mussels, alive, alive, oh! (Fun fact, the song was first published in Boston, somewhere around 1876.)

What you might not be as familiar with is the slightly perverse tradition that has developed in recent years, wherein tourists rest their hands upon the statue of Molly, or specifically certain pieces of her body, allegedly with hope for good fortune.

About a decade ago, tourists began rubbing the statue's breasts, making them appear golden, when actually it's just a result of bronze erosion caused by excessive handling or rubbing.

There's tons of other things you can do to garner some good luck, folks.

In the meantime, keep your hands off Molly Malone.

No trip to Dublin would be considered complete with a visit to the Book of Kells, located in the Trinity College Library.  The Book of Kells is a manuscript containing the four Gospels of the New Testament, crafted in a monastery somewhere around 800 AD.  The book takes its name from the Abbey of Kells, which was its home for centuries before making its way to Trinity.

Photographs of the actual Book of Kells itself aren't allowed, to preserve the sanctity and colors of the book, kept inside a protective glass case under guard in a darkened room.

Next door, however, is the Ultra-Cool library itself, which many of my fellow bibliophiles will immediately recognize, as the famed Jedi library from the Star Wars universe is based on the Trinity library.  Once a geek, always a geek, even in one of the most impressive library settings you'll ever set your eyes upon.

And finally, a visit to St. Patrick's Cathedral, along with a pass by St. Patrick's Well, because, well, you know.  Legend has it that the saint who bears my name used a well on the location 1,500 years ago to baptize converts.  This slab below was discovered in 1901 covering the remains of an ancient well, which might be the same location.  The stone was found near the entrance to Saint Patrick's Park, which is alongside the cathedral (through which Scott and I ran).  The slab is believed to be more than a millennium old.

All in all, I know how I would describe the Ireland experience thus far: