A little yeast goes a long way

I buy a hop-on-and-hop-off bus ticket at the campsite and get ripped off by the camp site manager by mistaking what he said was the price as "fifty Euros" and handing him 60 and he told me I had given him 20 too much saying "good job I'm honest". Once my feet had warmed up and my brain began ticking over again I discover the price and that what he actually must have said was "15 Euros" and in fact he kept 20 for himself, not so honest, more a bare faced liar. Paddy?? Our driver is also the tour guide. "Don't worry he says, It doesn't rain all the time in Dublin". "It only rains for four days ... and then it rains for three."

His number one tip for visiting in Dublin is St Michael's cathedral, so I do. The floor tiles are 19th century replicas of mediaeval tiles and those amongst you with a fetish for floor tiles will love them otherwise it's a bit of a if you seen one cathedral you've seen 'em all visit. Except for the crypt which is vast and unlike St Martin in the fields in London has not been turned into a cash cow cafe and is beautifully eery. Amongst the remains of various important people are the mummified remains of a cat and a rat that was found in the organ pipes. Who chose to keep and display them for the global tourist to view with awe and delight I do not know, but I like her sense of humour. I got a bit lost down there, and stumbled upon a loo, which was very handy.

I have visited Dublin before, sans "pack" and avec The Beard but by the time we got to our hotel I had come down with the flu and insisted we turn around and go home again so I could ache and be miserable in my own bed. Consequently this does not rank in the Beard's top ten of enjoyable times although it may be in his top ten of "times Jenni has made a mountain out of molehill." So this time I say benevolently I will go to the Guinness factory and have a pint there for him. He didn't look as grateful as I was expecting.

I have with uncustomary foreward planning prebooked my ticket online thus avoiding the queue and saving a euro fifty. When I arrive, there is no queue and the kiosk I have to get my ticket from is not working, so I trudge to the ticket booth anyway, where they find my booking. I imagine Guinness storehouse is kind of like a nightclub, I would have to ask my children to verify this, although if I did they would just roll their eyes and say "oh Mum it's a 'club' not a nightclub" and I would still be none the wiser, but it is all big multi-screen images of beery bubbles, techy music and cool lighting. It is a massive steel structure based on a building in Chicago, the steel has been painted duck egg blue and is a beautiful architectural sculpture, I love it. All my previous apathy for this venue is gone and I get an adrenaline rush as I glide up the escalator onto the first of over seven floors, I feel like Charlie Bucket about to meet Willy Wonka which is strange because I have never even tasted Guinness and am hoping to get a Guinness cocktail that is rather more Stolichnaya than stout, that will hopefully pass for having been here and done that.

The first floor is all merchandise and about five times the size of my local Top Shop back home; it sets the theme for what Guinness storehouse is - all unashamed but world class marketing and brand boosting. Colin Farrell is here again with a microphone in his hand, the screen writers strike must be hitting him hard and he encourages us over the speakers to gather round for "orientation" I am not a girl to rebuff a multi-millionaire actor who has fallen on hard times, so with a toss of my hair and a quick lick of my teeth to make sure I haven't got spinach on them, I gather.

Matthew, whose official title is "brewing assistant", is very knowledgeable and I am sure he would make a great Dad. He tells us how Arthur Guinness borrowed £100 from a benevolent Godfather to start his business and how he leased the huge St James Gate site for 9000 years at a cost of only £45.

Now the Irish do a good impression of a being a much laid back nation who lurch fom craic to craic, but the people at Guinness storehouse break the mould. When they tell you how to pour a pint of "the black stuff" they are minutely fastidious. Matthew describes it as a "delicate drink" that can be spoiled by "poor housekeeping". Like Bill Oddie describing a newborn baby bird's first long haul migration he describes it going from keg, to cold room, through the lines, into the tap, out the nozzle and then is at the mercy of the pourer. It should be served at 6 degrees and poured with the glass at 45 degree angle with the nozzle an inch from the glass, the glass should be filled up to about the harp logo and then left to settle for 119.5 seconds, then the tap is pushed back and the glass filled to the top.

He then looks directly at me and says "and this creates the surge which is how you get the distinctive tight knit creamy head" I will myself to blush demurely, thinking, Elizabeth Bennett, Elizabeth Bennett, but I only manage a lopsided grin. Well what with the music, the duck egg blue paintwork and the smiling Irish eyes, I'm hooked. I go from floor to floor of "brewing process" and clap like a newly converted Christian when "Tammy" from Minnesota is picked out from the crowd to press the button to "start the next brewing batch." With the aid of a human machine interface board we "go over live to the brew house" everyone holds their breath, but, as if they do it every hour on the hour seven days a week, the brew that will forever be known as Tammy's is on it's way to a destiny with "innovative draught dispensers". And finally I summit Mount Guinness at deck 7 "The Gravity Bar" Like a girl about to take first communion I approach the bar a little nervously. "I'll have a pint" I say like I'm joking, but they take me seriously and after 119.5 seconds, and probably rather more surging from my side of the bar rather than the barman's I have my very own beautiful pint of free Guinness.

I am no longer a Guinness virgin. I chat to an American couple who come over to ask me where I got my "sneakers" from cos they're really "cute". I determine to bin them at the first opportunity, the trainers, not the Americans. It's their first time out of the States and they keep talking about "Europe" I try to stress that it's not one country and that they are all very different, but hey they don't care - MacDonalds is even cheaper here than back home so they're happy.

We agree to meet up again in Paris for more fashion tips and French fries. I have never left a bar so reluctantly, but have to get to a camping shop before sundown for a mat of some description or face another night with the risk of ending up frozen food for rabbits. Guinness storehouse may not be Paddy's top tip for Dublin, but it is mine.

Allow me to wax lyrical a second, it's historical, artistic, futuristic and if that's not enough it has a big shop where you can buy stuff. But I think what I like best about it is that you can put it in your mouth and swallow it.