A perfect pint in Dublin

by Pádraic Gilligan, Co-Founder, SoolNua Consulting & Research / Consultancy, SITE

Irish people are tricky when it comes to pubs and Guinness.

We always prefer the reassuring familiarity of our own “local”, bound by the quiet rituals of where we sit, who we nod to, and how we like our pint pulled. And when it comes to Guinness? Well, each of us is a connoisseur, a professor emeritus in the faculty of the “Perfect Pint,” fiercely dismissive of any differing viewpoint, even – maybe especially – from other Irish people.

This is the reality that faced Keith, owner of the Perfect Pint Tour, when he took 4 Irish and 1 American on an kind of Joycean odyssey around 4 pubs in Dublin City on a glorious afternoon in Spring.

Keith picked us up in his posh Mercedes van and quickly established his creds with a wide ranging treatise on the pubs of Dublin. He delivered a lively, learned, and occasionally ludicrous lecture on the 743 pubs of Dublin, weaving together historical fact and playful fiction in the way only a seasoned storyteller can. It was part tour, part TED Talk, part stand-up.

He provided a scientific explanation of the properties of Guinness (75% nitrogen, 25% CO2) and clear instructions on how to drink it: from the same point on the glass in 7 swallows or less, leaving a foam “lacing”, like wine legs, around the inner circumference of the glass.

Kavanagh’s aka The Gravediggers

By the time we reached Kavanagh’s of Glasnevin (aka the Gravediggers), Keith had us eating out of his hand and we sat in the private snug (only 30 pubs in Dublin now have one) anxious to demonstrate our new knowledge and down our pints in seven swallows.

The Gravediggers had been a quiet, family owned and run pub for 7 generations but went viral after the late Anthony Bourdain gave it a shout out in the Dublin episode of his television series The Layover, which aired in January 2013.

It’s still family owned and run, and, mercifully, is still quiet – there are no screens and, despite the raucous revelry after Luke Kelly’s funeral in 1984, and Bono’s alleged efforts to get a sing song going, music is still banned. At Kavanagh’s it’s all about the conversations and the pints.

From Glasnevin we wove our way through the northside neighbourhoods of Phibsboro’, Drumcondra and Ballybough  to Amiens Street and to J. D. Cleary’s, a pub I’d passed many times but never visited. While there were screens in Cleary’s, and pint drinking punters watching the racing on them, Cleary’s was in the grips of that mid-afternoon chiaro-scuro lull, with laser-like shafts of sunlight penetrating, and uplifting, the shadowy gloom of the back bar.

J. D. Cleary’s Amiens Street

Cleary’s is a kind of shrine to the Irish patriot, Michael Collins (of the eponymous movie starring Liam Neeson and Julia Roberts), his strong facial expressions dominating most of the black and white framed pictures that covered the walls of the pub.

Keith explained that the pub was now a listed building as Collins had slept in a room above it during the time when Amiens Street would have constituted the eastern boundary of the “Monto”, once Dublin’s, and indeed Europe’s, most notorious red light districts. The pint at Cleary’s was more chilled than Kavanagh’s, but still exceptional and strict door policy is observed there!

The Bank, College Green

Our odyssey continued, and from Amiens Street we crossed the Liffey to the southside and headed for the Bank, a newish Dublin pub in a very old building. Owned by renowned Limerick publican, Charlie Chawke, the Bank is all high spec, retro stained glass and fits perfectly with that newer drinking zeitgeist – the hand crafted cocktail – favoured by Gen Z (we had in our midst).

This was where we had what Keith declared to be Dublin’s “best” Irish Coffee, a unique Irish cocktail, combining hot coffee, whiskey and rich cream, invented, out of necessity, in Shannon Airport when passengers awaiting a much delayed departure, needed to be nourished and, save for the mentioned ingredients, the cupboard was bare!

The Oval, Middle Abbey Street

We crossed the Liffey again to reach our final pub, The Oval, noting a living, lasting legacy of the 1916 Rising: bullet holes from British fire on the arms of the angles on the monument to Daniel O’Connell. And the Oval is a legacy pub, dating from the 1820s, commemorating the principal actors in the 1916 rising with bronze busts displayed in the bay window of the property.

At the Oval, Keith inducted us in the art of pouring the perfect pint, our 5 pints presented for impartial judgement to the Oval’s on-duty professional barman. Ironically, the American in our party was called out, receiving a souvenir hat for his effort and skill. We drank the pints we poured, and none were left behind—a testament to our success or our thirst, or perhaps both.

You don’t have to be a visitor from overseas to appreciate the Perfect Pint Tour. In fact, it may be especially meaningful if you’re Irish. You get to see your city anew, to taste it anew, and to remember that perfection—like a proper pint—takes patience, craft, and just the right amount of nitrogen.

So if you’re ready to embark on your own perfectly poured pilgrimage across Dublin’s public houses, I’d heartily encourage you to visit the Perfect Pint Tour website and book yourself in.

Just don’t argue with Keith about the seven-swallow rule.

Sláinte.