The Peoria Irish Fest happened last weekend and I was going to do my bar thing Saturday at one of the pubs on the grounds there on the Riverfront Park. There were five pubs to choose from, so I could’ve done a comprehensive comparison of each pub and try to figure out which one would be the best for me and for this 365 bar crawl journey that we’re on to visit.
But I decided it might be easier to just pick the first one I ran into, that seems to really fit the way I do things and so that’s exactly what we’re going to do!
It’s off to the Peoria Irish Fest we go!
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Bar Number 202: The Guinness Pub @ Peoria Irish Fest, Saturday, August 29, 2026
There’s the beautiful Gateway building in downtown Peoria, which you have to go through to get to the Riverfront Park, where the Peoria Irish Fest is happening.
There’s the entrance, let’s enter and begin our Saturday night at this year’s Peoria Irish Fest!
As soon as I walked in, I ran into Martha from Trefzger’s Bakery looking cute on her Tart On A Cart bike! Great to see Martha, as always, love that bike!
There’s Dick and Tori, looking fabulous and it was great to see them and catch up on things. They last appeared on the blog back in February when we were at bar number 36. Great to see them, as always!
Okay, we need to find a pub and get a beer and I think I see one right over there…
Yep, it’s the Guinness Pub and Joe, who’s one of the bartenders tonight came out and welcomed me in, so I guess this will be the official pub of the evening. See how easy this is?
They’ve got a nice long bar in here adorned with the Guinness logo!
I started off with a glass of Harp beer and here’s the Guinness crew serving it up to me with a lot of smiles and good cheer!
Everyone here was really friendly and we had a nice chat about the 365 bar crawl and the Peoria Irish Fest!
There’s the beers on draft in the back behind the bar. One side has many options and on the other side you have the lone option of Busch Light.
As you can see, there’s a nice crowd in the pub and there’s a band playing live music up on the stage, let’s go take a look and a listen!
This is Reverie Road and they were killing it onstage!
They played a wonderful set and the crowd loved them. They describe themselves as a “Celtic Powerhouse ensemble” and you can read more about the band here.
The Peoria Irish Fest features so much great live music and there’s many local bands that are part of the musical festivities including, Still Shine, Turas, The Roundstone Buskers, The Bogside Zukes and Barry Cloyd.
What a fun Saturday night at the Guinness Pub at the 2026 Peoria Irish Fest!
There’s the sun setting on the giganzo glass of Guinness beer!
And as I left for the evening, I had to get a couple shots of the Gateway building at night.
Thanks to everyone at the Guinness Pub for a fabulous night of Irish fun! Slàinte!
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The Drinks
I had three glasses of Harp beer at the Guinness Pub.
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Bar List, Rules, Banner Art & Donation Link.
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