Just a short walk from the city centre and right in the heart of the St James' Gate Brewery, is the impressive Guinness Storehouse. Built in 1904, using the architectural techniques that created Chicago's skyscrapers, the Storehouse was the first steel-framed building in Ireland. Used for fermenting and for storing stout until the 1980s, this huge listed building, covering four acres, has been converted into a fascinating museum-cum-art gallery.

Inside, the original massive girders form a minimalist backdrop to the displays. Six levels, linked by open escalators, surround a central glass atrium shaped liked a giant pint glass rising 100 feet high. Someone has worked out that it would take 14.3 million pints of the real thing to fill it. No wonder this imaginative recycling of the old building has collected award after award. In 2001, Arup Consulting Engineers reckoned that the Guinness Storehouse "will stand as a museum of the past for those who appreciate what architecture and engineering of another age achieved. It will also stand as a model for others to follow who seek new uses for our heritage of structures from the past." The Guinness past goes back to 1759, when Arthur Guinness signed a 9,000-year lease and started brewing here. That original document is on view, encased in the atrium floor.

The ground floor displays are not so much a presentation of the ingredients of Guinness, as a sensual immersion in them. I ran my hands through giant vats of barley and sniffed the odour coming from tubes of air-blown hops. One floor up, I felt like Alice in Wonderland as I wandered inside enormous coppers, big enough for mashing, boiling and fermenting 600 barrels of the black stuff.

But the Storehouse is not just about a product. The arts are showcased in a vast space on the fifth floor, where the younger generation flock to see what's new and hot in the Irish and international arts worlds. This month, you can see Parade by Paul Regan, described as a 'rising young star' by the Irish Independent.

In the Life Room, audio-visual screens re-create the craic - the Irish word for 'a good time' - that happens spontaneously in pubs everywhere. Then, there are the old TV commercials, surrounded by toucans, ostriches and other paraphernalia of Guinness advertising campaigns over the years.

At the very top of the building is the Gravity Bar, the highest in Dublin. The circular glass walls provide a 360-degree panoramic view over the city, the froth on the Storehouse's giant pint. Sit back. Enjoy the view. Join in the craic.