Belfast Pub & Art Walking Tour | Belfast Whiskey Week 2023

Name: Belfast Whiskey Week 2026
Start: 2026-07-24
End: 2026-08-01
Location: Belfast

Filed: 15 Jul 2023
By: Belfast Whiskey Week
Read: 5 min
Ref: BWW/23/924

On a Friday afternoon in October 2023, Belfast Whiskey Week opened its doors to the city itself — its laneways, its gable walls, its centuries-old taverns — with a walking tour built from the ground up for the festival. Led by the irrepressible Larry and Paul of Belfast Walking Tours, the Public Houses & Art Trail sent a merry band of whiskey lovers out into the heart of the city to discover what Belfast has always quietly known about itself: that its culture lives in its streets as much as its glass.

About This Event

A Truly Bespoke Tour; designed for Belfast Whiskey Week.

Larry & Paul take you on a trail that allows you to discover the Vibrant Art Work that is Brightening up our City Centre, coupled with the discovery of our oldest taverns and the historic buildings that have been preserved for us to frequent.

The Tour provides an insight into our rich Irish Pub culture and lively Street Art scene, while sipping whiskies from the festival and sampling our bespoke Donuts from "Oh Donut".

The Craic from these lads alone is worth the ticket price.

Timeslot: 12pm-3pm
Start Time: 12pm
Duration: 3hrs
Drinks: 4 Drams
Type: Walking Tour
Walking: Be Prepared to Walk around Belfast. Some of the areas & venues may not be fully accessible, please contact us @belfastwhiskeyweek on socials, or via email on marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com or 07773675179 (8am-8pm) to discuss.

Disclaimers

Please note that individual dietary requirements are not being catered for with any food at this event.

Each Brand/Distillery and Collaborative Partner have agreed to our Min/Max Pour Policy. Please Respect this, and enjoy your festival responsibly. Festival Participants who are deemed to be too inebriated, or are not respecting themselves, will not be permitted into events and venues. ALL Hosts/Ushers/Collaborators and Venue Staff have the right to refuse participants without question and recourse. Please Drink Responsibly.

All events are only available to those 18 years old and over. Do not purchase tickets if you are under the age of 18. Be prepared to produce ID if required. Venue staff & ushers may ask you to provide ID when showing your valid tickets. You may be refused enter to events if you can’t prove your age.

Some venues may change, if they do, you will be notified. All events are subject to changes out of the control of the festival organisers.

Any issues, please contact us @belfastwhiskeyweek on socials, or via email on marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com or 07773675179 (8am-8pm) to discuss.

NO Refunds will be given. Please only buy tickets if you are prepared to attend the event. Tickets are transferable. If you are going to transfer tickets please email marketing@belfastwhiskeyweek.com

Looking Back

There are tours, and then there are experiences that feel like being handed the keys to a city. This was the latter. Larry and Paul — guides of genuine warmth and bottomless local knowledge — wove together two threads that might seem unlikely companions: the vibrant, irreverent street art that has transformed Belfast's city centre into an open-air gallery, and the ancient, timber-dark public houses that have been standing through more history than most of us care to reckon with. The result was something that felt less like a ticketed event and more like a long afternoon in good company, moving from one story to the next, glass in hand.

Four drams of festival whiskey punctuated the route — each pour a moment to stop, taste, and let the seanchas of wherever you were standing sink in a little deeper. The whiskies weren't merely refreshments; they were anchors. A dram in a Victorian snug lands differently than one in a tasting room, and Belfast's oldest taverns have a way of making uisce beatha taste like it belongs there, as if the walls themselves have been absorbing the stuff for generations. The pubs visited on this trail are not museum pieces — they are living places, full of duchas, still doing what they were built to do.

Between stops, Larry and Paul kept the craic flowing in the way only truly gifted guides can — knowledgeable enough to trust, relaxed enough to enjoy. The street art detours added genuine surprise to the afternoon; Belfast's mural culture runs deep, but the newer wave of colour and craft lighting up its laneways and gable ends is something else entirely. Seeing it through fresh eyes, with someone who knows the story behind each piece, was a reminder that this city never really stops making itself anew. If you want to explore more of Belfast's whiskey geography, the Belfast Whiskey Week Whiskey Map is a fine companion for continuing that journey at your own pace.

The bespoke doughnuts from Oh Donut deserve their own mention — because whoever decided that a whiskey walking tour needed a serious doughnut component was correct, and we should all say so plainly. They were exceptional, and the pairing of sweet, pillowy dough with a well-chosen dram was the kind of small detail that lifts an event from good to genuinely memorable. It's the sort of thinking that runs through Belfast Whiskey Week at its best: nothing is an afterthought.

This tour ran across multiple sessions throughout the festival week — a testament to how quickly it captured people's imaginations. If the Friday afternoon session whetted your appetite, it's worth knowing that similar later sessions of this same trail were also available, as were the equally beloved Belfast Hidden Tours: Walking, Whiskies & Whispers for those who wanted to go further down the rabbit hole of the city's more secretive corners. Belfast, it turns out, rewards the curious walker handsomely — especially when the walking comes with whiskey.