First, the Guinness Brewery. Guinness is good for you! And I agree! Important facts I learned: the term porter was created by Guinness for their type of beer, because porters (certain workers in Dublin) were drinking a specific, dark concoction and wanted more. Also, Guinness is never served warmer than something like 5 or 6 degrees celsius. Never serve it room temperature! The tour wasn't all that worthwhile, except that I was in the Guinness store house. It's very modern and well-informed, but you wander around yourself as if you're in a museum, and you don't see any actual beer making, just replicas. The bar at the top is wonderful, of course, free beer.
Next the Jameson Distillary. Much, much more interesting! I no longer remember the order in which irish whiskey is created, but the tour followed every step, and we had a guide. He was funny and knowledgeable. It's just too bad that the distillary moved to south Ireland, and now they only have replicas and unused machines left to show us. At the end 4 volunteers got to taste test Jameson with 3 other irish whiskeys, and also with a scotch whiskey and jack daniels. Two of the guys liked Jameson the best, the other two liked Bushmills (which is fine since Jameson makes Bushmills and all the other irish whiskeys they used).
