After paying an entry fee of about $10, visitors receive "the pebble," a palm-sized Lucite token with a globule of Guinness stout inside. The pebble grants entry to Storehouse, its displays, and -- of course -- its well-stocked gift shop. And once visitors have slowly risen to the top floor, like bubbles in a glass, the pebble acts as a drink ticket at the Gravity Bar, which boasts panoramic views of the city. A bartender scans the pebble, deactivating a metal strip inside it, serves you a pint (cold or extra cold), and returns the pebble as a souvenir. "The pebble is important," says Ardill. "It's not just a ticket. It starts conversations."

Storehouse is already a top tourist destination in Ireland. It bumped off the Book of Kells at Trinity College in its inaugural year, during which it drew 570,000 tourists and hosted 45,000 people for special events and training. The old visitors' center, the Hopstore, drew 470,000 tourists annually before it began to burst at the seams. (Located about a hundred yards from Storehouse, the Hopstore has since been sold to the MIT Media Lab, which runs its European research center there.)

But Guinness and Imagination aren't declaring victory yet. Clarke says that some visitors have been asking for guided tours, which aren't currently available. Brainstorming is under way regarding how to make one of the bars a bit "warmer and more exciting," in Clarke's words.

"The goal was for Storehouse to evolve, adapt, and grow up," Ardill says. "Places like Storehouse bring consumers and employees together and open the doors to the community. They're a way to make a company's vision tangible. But that doesn't mean everything should be set in stone."

Scott Kirsner (kirsner@worldnet.att.net) is a Fast Company contributing editor based in Boston. He agreed not to submit his pub bills as research expenses for this story. Learn more about Guinness Storehouse on the Web (www.guinnessstorehouse.com).

The Power of Small Ideas

The initial schematic for Guinness Storehouse was sketched out -- where else? -- on a cocktail napkin. Adrian Caddy, napkin artist and creative director at Imagination Ltd., the high-profile London firm that worked with Guinness to design the facility, believes that the best ideas rarely bubble up in conference rooms or formal brainstorming sessions: "Asking a creative person to produce a good idea in a big meeting," he says, "is like meeting someone who's a comedian and saying, 'Okay, say something funny now.' "

At first, Guinness executives didn't think that they needed to devote the entire Storehouse building to the new visitors' center, and no one had the slightest intention of turning the structure into a subtle-but-stunning icon of the Dublin skyline: a massive pint glass topped with an illuminated circular bar. On a plane ride back to London from their first meeting with Guinness about the Storehouse project, Caddy and Ralph Ardill, Imagination's director of marketing and strategic planning, started scribbling.

To launch Storehouse, Imagination designed a live show that ran for three consecutive evenings. The firm worked with Jean-Pascal Lévy-Trumet, creative director of the opening ceremony of the 1998 World Cup in France. The series of events attracted some 4,000 people, featured a cast of 20 performers, and made use of the entire building. Not bad for an idea that began on a napkin.

"Most good ideas are born out of a little sketch," Caddy says. "A crudely drawn doodle has the power to communicate an idea to a really huge audience without much backup explanation. And the best ideas probably don't occur when everybody is sitting around a table, but rather when you're having something to eat or having a talk in a bar. I always just grab the first thing I see to sketch on -- a book of matches, a little notepad, a bar mat -- and try to take advantage of those spontaneous moments. You can capture a lot of passion and energy in a small space."