Yes, you can get a Guinness at most (all?) Galway Bay pubs nowadays, and that includes The Brew Dock.
It wasn’t always the case, but even compared to other Galway Bay pubs around Dublin, the beer lineup at The Brew Dock can be somewhat hit and miss at present. Some of the taps these days are the usual fine Galway Bay choices – something we’ll return to in a moment, and there are usually a few local guest beers, too, from the likes of Third Barrel and Rascals. But if it’s cheap Eurolagers you’re after, there’s also Veltins and some other macros taking up tap space. In itself, this is, perhaps, not a surprise. This pub is reasonably handy for both Busáras* and Connolly Station, neither of which is overendowed with pleasant places to wait for your bus or train, so it’s not going to be only a craft beer nerd hangout.
But all too often on recent visits, there are multiple taps out of service or perhaps not as fresh as they might be – a real contrast to years gone by when this was a destination for beer nerds for the variety and vibrancy of the beers on offer, both from Galway Bay itself as well as other independent brewers from near and far. And it does seem that Galway Bay are making some especially interesting seasonal, one-off and collaboration beers of late, so it’s a shame that they rarely seem to be highlighted here.
And to be clear, I haven’t had a bad experience here, but the pub does look and feel, well, tired. It’s possibly unfair to compare it to a brand-new Galway Bay pub like Molly’s, which still has its coat of fresh paint, or a stalwart like The Black Sheep which is constantly rotating its beers (including a fairly-frequent weekend cask option again) but it does feel like The Brew Dock could use a bit of a spruce-up.
The area immediately around the pub has a similar issue in terms of needing a tidy-up, so one wonders if it’s something seeping in from outside. But to end on a positive note, all the elements are here to see a return to form – let’s hope it happens in the very near future. In the meantime, there are still some lovely pints and nice snacks to be had – it’s a fine spot to pre-game before an event at 3Arena.
*For my fellow Brutalism nerds, let’s talk about the theatre within Busáras, and how awesome it could have been had it been properly funded and finished…
Where: 1 Amiens St, Mountjoy, Dublin 1
Access from the city centre: Buses 14, 15, 15A, 15B, 27, 151, Luas Red Line, 17-ish minute walk
Food: Standard Galway Bay menu
Sport: Football, rugby
TVs: A few here and there
Music: Lots of GenX faves
Family-friendliness: The usual Galway Bay kids’ menu is on offer
Pub-crawl-ability: Medium – Urban Brewing is nearby, and Dockers and The Wind Jammer are across the Liffey; The Morris Bar isn’t terribly far, either
Local sites of note: Busáras, Connolly Station, EPIC, Custom House, 3Arena, Bord Gáis Energy Theatre, IFSC
Haunted: The toilets can be a bit creepy
Other notes: The toilets in question are upstairs and always seem a bit off. Let’s blame infrasound?
Socials: Instagram, Facebook
Although the branding is different, Urban Brewing is an outpost of 
But what I particularly enjoy about Urban Brewing is that each part of the venue feels very different – the outside space is the go-to when the weather is good, but the modern bar in the old building has a lovely look and feel, while the vaults below are great for events – cosy and always beautifully decorated. And as a newer business in an older building, they’ve had the space to get their accessibility figured out in the retrofitting; there are lifts as well as stairs.
This week, it’s another relatively rare visit into the more touristy part of town as we visit 
Kennedy’s is another pub I’ve walked past many times without entering, but I finally had a bit of free time in the area this week, so stopped in for a sneaky daytime glass after visiting the National Gallery. While not nearly as extensive a list of craft beer taps as nearby 
There’s a lovely tiled bar in the basement for live music and events, and this space as well as the terra cotta decoration on the pub’s exterior add unique touches, while the rest of the interior feels a bit more ‘standard Irish pub.’ All told, it’s probably more of a destination for those on literary walking tours than anything else, but it’s nice to find a spot in tourist-land with a few craft beers; it’s not necessarily a given in Dublin.
Sometimes, it really is all about The Socials.
Last week, we asked whether 
The pub has been here since the 1850s, and in the Hedigan family since 1904, and you can’t miss their name in neon, either. Of course, like so many pubs along this route, it’s name-checked in Ulysses, and has a useful write-up 
Well, there have been proposals to 
We are back this week with a ‘request pub’ – one that’s much further north than our more common north-of-the-Liffey-but-still-pretty-central stomping grounds. We’re heading out of Dublin City proper to Howth; it’s an easy trip on the DART, but a bit of a pain if, for example, you needed Dublin Bus to deposit you to a nearby spot at a predetermined time. Dublin Bus is not always especially good at the concept of ‘on time’ (but it’s pretty great on ghost buses), so the journey in this general direction involved more taxis than I typically take in a 6-month period, but we got there in the end. Our (eventual) destination was 
I’d recently had an exchange on the socials lamenting the lack of railway station bars in Ireland, and while we have nothing here quite like the small-but-mighty 
We enjoyed excellent food and service when we stopped in, which isn’t necessarily a given in some pubs mid-week in the middle of the afternoon (hardly a fruitful time for most), so it was much appreciated. There is outdoor seating as well around both ends of the pub, but we kept to the more dimly-lit interior on a lovely sunny afternoon. Having offspring who actively avoid the sun may be odd to others, but hey, at least their vampiric ways are preventing long-term sun damage, and the pub interior really is lovely, all stone and dark wood.
Back in the day – you know, perhaps 3 years ago – this week’s pub was The Porterhouse Central. It was a very handy spot in that you could enjoy a mix of interesting beers from Porterhouse and various guest options, but you avoided 
However, I happened to be in the area and had a bit of time after a meeting, so I gave Tapped another try. I’m pleased to say that the interior, while still feeling just slightly too ‘taproom’ has been softened and improved. There is now much more comfortable seating and the lighting is more dialled-in; it feels warmer on the whole. There are screens showing the beer lineup, 
While it may seem that we rarely venture south of the Liffey (true, really), we recently had occasion to be down in our old Ballsbridge stomping grounds, and so returned to 
There has been much local discussion surrounding the launch of 
And that may be all well and good for many customers, but these new brews haven’t (mostly) muscled out the usual macro suspects; it’s the ‘good’ beers that have been jettisoned to make space, including – really a loss here – the Pilsner Urquell. Removed from The Bridge’s menu now are Rye River Upstream Pale Ale, Warsteiner lager and, er, Madri. The Madri may be no great loss, but the others are keenly felt (especially if, say, A Friend were really looking forward to a Pilsner Urquell, sighed to make do with a Warsteiner and then realised that the only drinkable lager was Carlsberg). To add insult to injury, the hand-painted panel all about Pilsner Urquell has been partially, but not entirely, covered by a television. Ouch.
Sometimes, just sometimes, a fantastic new(ish) pub pops up where you least expect it. Dublin’s Talbot Street has had a lot of publicity 
At that time, the shopfront that is now the pub was The Morris Wallpaper Stores, and the signage from that era has been preserved above the door. The theme continues inside, with framed William Morris wallpaper samples on the exposed brick, giving a mix of industrial chic and cosy early-20th century-pub vibes. There’s a pizza spot toward the back (check for opening hours, as these things evolve) with more communal-styles tables, but the seating in the main bar is much ‘pubbier,’ and very comfortable indeed.
There’s a good mix of the usual Guinness-and-friends offerings, but also a handy Rye River tap, as well as Beamish for the Corkonians in your life. The cocktail list is interesting as well. On our visit, the staff were all wonderful, and the attention to detail that went into the design of the pub is evident. It hits just the right mark of honouring the building’s past without feeling like a theme pub.
While it was likely something akin to a coaching inn in that earlier phase – again, like its not-too-distant neighbour in Drumcondra – having a tourist site spring up nearby in the form of the National Botanic Gardens in the 19th century was a boon to business, similar to the relationship between the nearby 