Every city has its symbol, something that somehow encapsulates the city in the minds of visitors and émigrés. Think of Paris, and the Eiffel Tower will probably spring to mind, think of Rio and it's the statue of Christ, think of Rome and it could be the Coliseum, think of New York and the Statue of Liberty with her torch dominating the sea off Manhattan is a powerful image. So when you think of Dublin what's the parallel? The Spike? Liberty Hall? No? Then what?

Let me suggest something to you. It's not a building, it's not a monument, it's a drink. The thing that's most associated with Dublin and Ireland in the minds of people abroad is Guinness. It's quintessentially Irish, and specifically it's Dublin. One of my earliest memories of Dublin is crossing O'Connell Bridge and smelling the St. James's Gate brewery - that unmistakable odour of mash, hops and yeast that permeated the city with a westerly wind. The very fabric of the brewery is knitted into Dublin's history, its various legacies to the city are still there for the citizens to enjoy - St. Stephen's Green and the Iveagh Gardens to name but two.

It's not that I didn't know all of this, it's just that I'd forgotten it. But a trip this week with my son Rocco and his friend Pavitra to the Guinness Storehouse brought it all back. Rocco and I have visited Guinness before, but for Pavi it was a first time visit, so we did the real tourist thing and got a tour of the Storehouse before we ate. In these summer months you can still get a guided tour right up to 9 at night, so you can do the tour and then get something to eat in the Brewery Bar, which is what we did.

I've never liked guided tours much, but this one changed my mind. Claire, who was our guide, so was so enthusiastic and interested in what she did, that it was contagious. We were totally infected by her enthusiasm for the place and enjoyed every bit of tour that lasted perhaps an hour - from the bottom of the building to the top. It's all pretty informative, but for the three of us the high spot had to be the cooperage section, which is really fascinating.

Anyway, having walked our little legs off, we ended up in the Brewery Bar for dinner. This is set high up in the building and the view from the windows is spectacular - right across the brewery to Christchurch and the city centre. Under the evening sky the city's lights twinkled prettily and we had fun picking out landmarks. The room itself is styled like the rest of the building; you could call it warehouse chic. There are simple laminated wood tables and chairs and a wooden floor, so the décor is Spartan enough. But the room has a warm feel to it, perhaps as a result of the friendly service.

The menu is simple: four starters, four main courses and three desserts, so choosing is easy enough. Unusually the dishes in each course are priced the same; all the starters are €6.10, the main courses €14.50 and the desserts €5.90, so if you do your sums you'll find that three courses will cost you €26.50, not far off what you can so easily pay for pub grub, and on the lunch menu it's nearly all under a tenner. To start we could have had smoked salmon with Guinness bread or a tomato and mozzarella bruschetta, but instead Pavitra chose the Caesar salad and Rocco and I had the seafood chowder. There was chicken, salmon and pasta listed in the main courses, but seeing where we were the beef and Guinness stew was irresistible, so we all had that. There's a simple wine list here provided by Gilbeys with wines priced around the €20 mark plus some more expensive sparklers, but again, we reasoned just as we had with the main courses, and we all had a pint of Guinness with our meal.

We had a choice of various breads before the starters arrived, but with relentless tunnel vision we all picked the Guinness bread, making damn sure our evening was totally themed. Pavitra got a large and well-made Caesar salad, while both Rocco and I were presented with a steaming bowl of chowder - a really rich, creamy one almost solid with seafood that was delicious and left us rather well filled.

This meant that when the main courses came - a large bowl each of a beef stew cooked and flavoured with Guinness - that none of us was able to finish it. The beef was topped with a spoonful of mash with chopped chives and it was good, hearty and plentiful enough to bring a hungry man to his knees and cry 'enough!'. Let me clear, this wasn't haute cuisine, but it was honest, genuine and definitely good value.

We finished up with just one dessert between us, the Bailey's mousse, which had a curiously dense consistency, but was tasty enough. Three espressos finished off the meal, but not our evening in the Storehouse. There was still one last place to visit. So it was out of the restaurant and into the glass-sided lift to ride up to the top of he building for a drink in the Gravity Bar. You can't help it: you step out of the lift and you go, 'wow!'. 360 degrees of glass sides means there's no part of the city you can't see, and on this floor you're higher above sea-level than the top of Liberty Hall, so you get a long view as well. Rocco and Pavitra had another pint each here of Guinness as we stared across the Dublin skyline. If I was a visitor to Dublin, right here is where I'd want to be brought.