The Final Draft > Smithwick’s through the senses: What to expect from our Brewery Tours
Smithwick’s through the senses: What to expect from our Brewery Tours
Since we first opened our doors to the public over a decade ago, we have made it our business to offer every guest a truly immersive experience. To do this, we designed a brewery tour that engages all the senses, bringing our brewing process to life through sound, touch, taste, sight, and smell.
“An interactive and superbly presented history of the Smithwick’s brewery; you can see, smell, taste, and touch every stage of the brewing process.”
Jamie W, Tripadvisor
When you visit the brewery here on Parliament Street, you’ll step into a multi-sensory experience, from the tactile treat of feeling barley fall through your fingers to the sweet scents of Smithwick’s key ingredients. Here is a taste of just some of the sensory experiences you can expect during our brewery tour.
Touch: From bricks to barley
At the Smithwick’s Experience, you can quite literally feel our story come to life. From the moment you step through our heavy red wooden doors, even before the tour officially starts, you can reach out and feel the history of the brewery. The old stone walls are textured and cool to the touch, just as they were centuries ago when Franciscan monks brewed beer here.
Throughout the tour, you’ll have the opportunity to touch and feel the different ingredients we use to brew our red ale. Plunge your hand into the smooth barley grains, feel the thick stickiness of the mash as you stir it in a gleaming kettle, and mill malt into grist using our old Porteus mill. Through these tactile experiences, we aim to make the brewing process feel real, grounding you in a craft perfected by John Smithwick in 1710.
Sight: A visual feast
The Smithwick’s Experience beer tasting tour is truly a feast for the eyes, from start to finish. You’ll witness holograms flicker to life, conjuring the Smithwick family as they tell you the story of the brewery, their family, and Kilkenny, through both happy times and hardship.
Soft lighting bathes the abbey in an atmospheric glow, highlighting its ancient beams. Vibrant projections throughout the tour paint Kilkenny’s past in a rich tapestry of storytelling. You’ll see monks at work, barrels in cobbled streets, and the Smithwick’s story brought to life before your eyes.
Even our outdoor tasting area (opened in 2022) is a visual treat and a popular Kilkenny beer garden, vibrant under the summer sun with Kilkenny’s medieval skyline as a backdrop.
Sound: Our history can be heard
Sound weaves the brewery’s narrative together. Each of our knowledgeable guides has their own, unique way of telling our story, and will provide you with a wonderful running soundtrack to the tour. But the tour’s soundscape has an even greater depth than this.
Through our layered audio experience, you’ll hear a symphony of sound. Expect the distant rumble of ancient battles, the roar of fires, the clink of barrels, the honk and cackle of geese, the echo of footsteps in the abbey’s stone halls, and the sound of a pint being poured.
We’ve created the soundscape to offer a depth and quality to the tour that will make you feel like you’re eavesdropping on history.
Smell: Hops, malt and more
The air here in the beer brewery is alive with the aromas of brewing. You’ll enjoy this most of all in the Flavour Room, where we invite you to lean in and inhale. Breathe in the nutty warmth of roasted malt, the grassy freshness of hops, and all the smells that define Smithwick’s ales.
Each of our ingredients is distinctive and interesting in its own right, and each brings its own aroma and flavour to the mix during the brewing process. They are our ‘signature scents’, and we hope that smelling and feeling each of them will give you a more visceral understanding of how our Smithwick’s flavour is created.
Taste: The grand finale
Our tours famously end in the tasting room, where you’ll get the chance to savour a perfectly poured pint of Smithwick’s. After learning about the history, craft and love that goes into every barrel, we hope you’ll have gained a true appreciation for the final product!
If you want to put your taste buds to work, you can upgrade your complimentary pint to a flight of three ales. This is perfect for those of you who want to appreciate the nuances between our different ales or would like to choose a favourite brew. Even if you prefer to stick with one type of ale, now is the time to enjoy the flavour of years of dedication to brewing excellence.
Our Masters of Ale tour:
Ignite your senses even more with our Masters of Ale tour. We launched this tour in 2024 to cater to our guests who want to delve deeper into the delicate balance of ingredients that go into each of our ales. It encourages you to isolate your senses as you explore our ales and includes a guided sensorial tour and a tasting masterclass.
A note on our sensory experience:
Our brewery tour is famously a multi-sensory experience; however, we recognise that this doesn’t work for everyone. For that reason, we have developed a special AsIAm Autism-friendly experience for anyone with sensory sensitivity. We are proud to be one of the growing number of things to do in Kilkenny for those with Autism. We offer this tour on the first Thursday of every month, and you can read more about it here.