History and pints on tap at Dublin's Guinness Storehouse

Picture this. You're standing in the bottom of a beer glass that's seven stories high.

Could be the beginning of a really strange dream, but more likely you're at the Guinness Storehouse, the venerable shrine to suds that is Ireland's top tourist attraction and a fun place to visit if you have a few hours to spend in Dublin's fair city.

Built between 1902 and 1904, the Storehouse was used for fermentation, the last stage of the brewing process, until 1986 when production was moved to more modern facilities. In 2000 it opened as a visitor center with floors of exhibits designed around a glass atrium that mimics the design of a pint glass, although it would take 14.3 million actual pints to fill this one.