Guinness museum

Page 2A: Thursday. March 7.2002 : The Sun

Sun Journal

$40 million shrine to Irish beer• Guinness; /«th? muMf* tfDublin in fin old'JemieHtut'ion

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DUBLIN. Ireland — The moatpopular tourist attraction hereused to be theBoo* of KeiU. an or-nate manuscript created 800 yearsafter Jesus' birth that Is stored onthe Gothic campus of Trinity Col-lege

Now. the most popular attrac-tion Is a beer factory.

But not any beer factory.Guinness, one of the oldest and

best-known companies in Ireland.

plant Into a seven-story visitor andconference center.

The site drew nearly 600.000people In Its Inaugural year, whichwas hampered by tourist fears overthe agricultural ho of-and-mouthdisease and the Sept I I terroristattack In the United Stales. Guin-ness expects eventually to reach1 million visitors a year

The so-called (iuinneux Store-house Is more like the DisneyWorld of beer than a faux plantlour. It includes an indoor water-full, walk-through vut* .is large astwo-car garages and a circularrooftop bar with the most spectac-ular view In the center of Ireland'sancient capital city.

That's th« *wow' factor." com-pany spokeswoman Jane Doylesays of the so-called Gravity Bar•People don't expect when theyndr up on the .•:,-.., lift lelevator]to see that lend of view of the city."

This is the be&t-kept secret In

David Johnston. 23. of Tlpperary.Not quite, anymoreBill Clinton wms one of the first

visitors, arriving a week after theattraction opened In December2000 American country nuulc starEmmy Lou Harris has been here.So has the British girl-bandAtomic Kitten. The U.S. Marinesheld a birthday bash here And afew weeks ago. Ireland's PruneMinister Bertie Ahem, a CreQuentvisitor, arrived to present awardsto the country's biggest rugby, soc-r.rr and Gaelic football atari.

The company previously re-ceived tourlsU In an old vat housenearby. Attendance had grown toalmost a half-million a year there.much more than the place couldhandle. So company officials bruin-stormed, deciding In 1996 to rcno-vat« a storehouse that had beenempty for about a drcadc.

Actually, the building had someclaim to fame In Its own right. Itwas built in IBM &s the first steel-

Guinness executives had traveledto Chicago at the turn of the 20thcentury for some beer-making tips

new tdean about factory construc-tion and design, says RandalSuttle. an architect with RobinsonKeefe Devane. the Dublin (Inn thatworked on the recent remodel

Guinness' reputation for inno-

founded the company In 1759, afterntgnlnK a 9.0M-yrnr 1- i.-i- for an oldbrewery called St. James's Gate.

Top O* the evening: The Gravity Bar. sparkling at dusk, crowns the seven-story Guinness Startcompany calls ill spectacular view of downtown Dublin the "wow factor."

Havcadrop: A token from theGuinness Storehouse can be keptas a souvenir or traded far a pint.

Guinness Is still produced on thesite, in more technologically ad-vanced facilities

failed a smell test administered ev-ery few years, he had to return tohis old task In the factory.

fast-forward to the mld-20thcentury; Guinness went beyondbrewing, emerging u a major mar-keting force. It became the Coca-Cola of Europe, not ]ust because itproduced a popular beverage, butbecame its clever print ads and.later, television commercials letthe standard for the continent'sadvertising mduatry.

•Guinness Is good for you," oneof the best known of the slogans,was conceived after Irish physi-cians had written to the companyto claim that the beer held recu-perative powers for some patients.

Artist John GUroy devised a se-ries of ads of cartoon animals thatbecame a fixture here for 40 yearn,Walt Disney. Impressed by thequality of the animation, report-edly tried to lure away OUroy — to

Smirnoff Vodka, Johnnie Walker

The Guinness Storehouse de-votes ncurly u whole Door to mar-keting gimmicks, from memora-bilia with the popularToucan mas-cot "rookie" to comrnemorotlvesfrom the coronation of Queen Eliz-abeth n 50 years ago and the birthof Prince William In 1982. Nearby Isan enormous cylinder to which vis-itors can aflx their own fen mall.

•We love Dublin,- say* one.signed 'Washington College, Mary-land. USA.-

But the most memorable partsof the museum can be found at thetop and ground floors.

Visitors are greeted by thethumping drums of a Celtic riverdance. A roaring, manmade water-fall «urRes over alabs of Lurlte aipended overhead. A bank of moni-tors flash Images at the speed of

tntlalno a

By the 1990s, clob.il advertising

were winning awards for Guinnesstelevision commercials laced withample dnaea of Irish puckiahnejw.

Ireland — emerald hills, a raucousrugby stadium, a sheep herder Es-

the water there, from the Dodder-Poddle channel, was Ideal for mak-ing beer. (The rivers Paddle andLtffey eventually Joined to formwhat 9th-century None Vikingsdescribed as a dark pool, ordubAl i n n — hence the clty'anamt.)

In 1799, Ouinneu stoppedbrewing ale. He switched to a new.bitter, mahogany-colored brewthat was gaining popularity InLondon, especially among Un*market porten who worked up athirst on the Job. Guinness' porterbrew became a big hit.

several minutes It takes for stoutto settle In a glass before It can beproperly consumed. (With salesdown last year, the brewer Is won-dering whether consumers havebecome too busy to wait for the•perfect pint." It has begun dis-cussing waya to speed the process— a discussion bordering on thesacrilegious here.)

Many people might not even as-sociate with the company iis best-known marketing gimmick of all

In 1951. Sir Hugh Beaver, then

paid holidays, health care andguaranteed pensions for widows

•Get yourself a Guinnc.-qi mnn" wasa papular saying among thewomen In the Plmllco neighbor-hood around the plant.

Among the company's mostskilled employees were the coop-

store the beer, and the •'smellers"who used their keen noses to weedout sour barrels. If one of them

was fastest. When the argumentarose again a few years later, Bea-

•houlU create a book to settle bur-room arguments.

With that. theCuimieM Boo* ofWorld Records was born. Only theBible and Quran sell more copies,the company claims

company was bought by the Lon-don food-ami •Ifvrrnefi Riant.Dlageo PLC, which also owns

whisk visitors up a seven-storyhive of glass and green I-beams toVHrioufl exhibit* and, eventually, tothe 130-foot-nlghGravltyBar.

Every visitor receives a plasticlozenge that encases a dark drop ofGuinness It can be traded at theend of the tour for a free pint ofstout or soda. From an Island workstation In the middle of Q large, cir-cular room, bartenders serve 2.000(:;rn •; on a weekend day — twicethat many on St. Patrick's Day.

The bar feels more like CollegePark than Killamey. Hip-hoppulflcn through the speakersTwenty-somethings share a laughand a drink.

You know It's Ireland, however,when David Johnston, the bar-tender, "draws' a shamrock out-line In the creamy white head of aGuinness. He learned to turn hiswrist beneath the tap head Just soto tract- the image through month?ofpractlce.hesays.

As If on cue, outside the picturewindows, a rainbow bends over theDublin Mountains. Whether a potof gold Is at the other end, theGuinness folks can't say.

now: The fastest bird In flight la thelicrepnne falcon.*"alco peregnnutIt can go 168 miles an hour.