Rascals Brewing Company started with a husband-and-wife team who fell in love with craft beer on a trip to New Zealand and came home to Dublin with a plan to quit their jobs and build a brewery. That story - equal parts ambition and slightly mad courage - sets the tone for a tour that feels personal in a way that the big brewery experiences simply cannot match.
You walk through the actual working brewery floor, up onto a mezzanine level where you can see the full operation laid out below. The tour begins in the Malt Room, where you grab handfuls of malted barley and taste the different grains that form the backbone of each beer. You move through the brewhouse, engaging your senses at each stage - smelling and feeling the hops, watching the brewing vessels at work, and learning how each decision in the process shapes the final flavour in your glass. Art installations throughout the brewery offer creative interpretations of what happens during fermentation and conditioning, giving the tour a visual character that goes beyond stainless steel and pipes.
Then the tasting. Four core beers, each 190ml, each brewed on the premises you just walked through. Rascals has won multiple awards for their range, and tasting the beer in the same room where it was made adds a dimension that no pub pour can match. At just 21 EUR with free parking, this is one of the most affordable and authentic craft beer experiences in Dublin. Stillgarden Distillery is right next door if you want to follow your beer tour with a gin tasting.
