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Irish breweries and distilleries?

Does anyone know of any interesting breweries and whiskey distilleries, with tours, in Ireland? We're not going to be in Dublin, so Guinness and Jameson aren't options.

We'll be doing a clockwise tour of the somewhat southern half of the country (we'll be driving across the width of Ireland through Athlone).

And yes, I know drinking and driving in Ireland is not accepted. Our intent is not to drink too much, but to see how their breweries operate and be introduced to new beverages. :)

Thanks for any insight!

Posted by
1806 posts

I know Beamish in Cork offers brewery tours on certain days of the week. Not sure about Smithwick's in Kilkenny - but your could check their website. These are pretty large operations.

If you are more into microbreweries, I'm sure there are quite a few scattered throughout the country if you perform a simple Google search and contact them directly to find out about visiting hours.

Biddy Early and Galway Hooker are both excellent microbreweries, but these are located in Western Ireland.

Guiness in Dublin is the biggest waste of time/money if you are seriously interested in seeing how a brewery operates.

Posted by
194 posts

Excellent!

Western Ireland is just fine--we're flying in and out of Shannon. I wasn't too detailed about our trip. We're doing a circular tour starting from Shannon, going up to Galway, across Athlone, to Kilkenny/Glendalough to the east, and down through Cobh, Kinsale to the south and over to Dingle (that should give some indication of where we'll be).

Thanks!

Posted by
9363 posts

Jameson is a possibility if you are going to be in the Cork area. There is a Jameson distillery at Midleton, just a few miles from Cork. (The Jameson distillery in Dublin isn't actually an operating distillery anymore, anyway.) There is a tour with a whiskey "tasting" at the end.