Best Brewery Tour you've done

Williams 728
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Have to put in a plug for the Sam Adams tour at their Jamaica Plain pilot brewery. A ~30 minute informative spiel with stops inside in the brew room, then a good hour or so drinking three or four different brews. Show up on the right day and you'll get to sample trial brews. Suggested donation for the tour is $2, and you keep the tasting glass. And I guarantee the guide will be half in the bag, which can be fun ;)

Cheers!
 
When I was in college ('95-'99), we had a group project in a marketing class, and we selected Yuengling Brewery as our imaginary client.

I went to school in Philadelphia, so we drove up to Pottstown PA for a tour, and while on tour with my 3 group members a fork lift goes by, and it was Mr. Dick Yuengling himself moving cases / kegs around the warehouse, so we flagged him down, explaned we were doing a college project and could we get a group photo with him. So our project binder featured our group photo on the cover. So that made it the coolest tour ever.
 
Live in the midwest, Finches was extremely friendly, surly in minnesota was a steal, caned food item got 5 samples and a decent tour. The best is milwaukee brewing company. The was like a party, had the last tour of the night on a sat and pretty much got to drink for the rest of the night in the brewery. FUN FUN FUN.
 
Olympia Brewery, Tumwater Wa. 1973.
The tour was brief and very informative.
At the end of the tour the guide led the group to the tasting room, put on an apron and stepped behind the bar. He said we could drink all we wanted in the next half hour.
Besides the regular Oly swill we drank beers that would never leave the brewery.

AP
 
Not STOUDT's in Lancaster PA. it was the lamest tour I have ever been on. We walked into a room that had a tank and some windows.

"Here is the tank, there (pointing) is the lagering room...any questions?

It was HORRIBLE...and their beers were mediocre as well.
 
APendejo said:
Olympia Brewery, Tumwater Wa. 1973.
The tour was brief and very informative.
At the end of the tour the guide led the group to the tasting room, put on an apron and stepped behind the bar. He said we could drink all we wanted in the next half hour.
Besides the regular Oly swill we drank beers that would never leave the brewery.

AP
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Holy #$&! I'd forgotten about this one. I've been on it as well, probably around 1977, would have been about five years old.
 
Visiting the Trappist breweries in Belgian was a lot of fun and informative. Locally I'd have to say the Firestone after hours tour which was very cool....
 
My top 3
Terrapin in Athens, GA - lots of live music and chill
Harpoon - they let us taste from the tank!
Highland Brewing NC - place is so squeaky clean its amazing.
 
In March I went to Colorado to ski with my son and DIL. They live in Ft Collins and are close friends with the head brewer at O'Dells. I always enjoy visiting there and getting informal tours. They have really expanded over the years. Pulled a Cutthroat Porter right off the bottling line before the labeler. Man it was good!

We skied at Vail and they have a good friend and former Odell's brewer that is production manager at Crazy Mountain Brewing Company in Edwards. Got a great informal VIP tour there. They have a coffee Porter that's amazing.

My son and I toured the Budweiser brewery in Ft Collins. It's really amazing the size of everything. It's pretty much all automated.
 
Haven't read the whole thread, but DFH puts on a pretty good tour. The leader was informative and funny. The beer at the end is always good!

I also really dig the self guided tour for New Glarus. Nice place, friendly people.
 
christopherrburns said:
live in the midwest, finches was extremely friendly, surly in minnesota was a steal, caned food item got 5 samples and a decent tour. The best is milwaukee brewing company. The was like a party, had the last tour of the night on a sat and pretty much got to drink for the rest of the night in the brewery. Fun fun fun.
Click to expand...

+1
 
optaka said:
Not so much of a tour, but Harpoon definitely wins out for most samples given. Their approach was pretty much "you've all seen a brewery before and we know you are just here to try beer, so here it is." They had about 15 beers on tap and would talk about the first couple, then you could sample whatever you wanted for 20 minutes or so, talk about the next couple, then more sample time, etc. If you really wanted to see the brewery portion they would let you, but everybody that was there when I went was there for beer.
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The new beer hall is incredible also.
 
motlekj06 said:
Yuengling's tour is the sh*t. I grew up in Pottsville.
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I was just there a week ago, and it was awesome. Planning on going back. We have Troegs close by in Hershey as well and they are pretty cool also. I really want ot go up to Cooperstown NY and visit Ommegang, I think that would be awesome as well.

beerloaf
 
I just got back from Denver and hit up 5 breweries. Only toured New Belgium, which had a nice tour with good beers, and even more at the tasting room for sale, where we grabbed free bicycle tire repair kits in a cool tin. O'Dell had some awesome beers on their flight menus (had the high abv delicious ones), and Denver Beer Co. had some interesting stuff, like an Everything beer. Favorite beer discovered on the trip was Lugene Chocolate Milk Stout by O'Dell.
 
Only tour I've ever been on was at Harpoon at their satellite in Windsor, VT. It was an excellent tour, extensive, in-depth, interactive, and fun. We were able to sample straight out of the tanks and then free reign over the taps at the end of the tour. Good stuff.
 
Last April a friend and I did a Euro Beer Tour. Eleven cities in four countries. Our favorite tours were Cantillon and Pilsner Urquell. As previously mentioned, at Pilsner Urquell you tour the lagering caves that took 100 years to carve out. You get to see the open barrel fermentation but at a certain temperature it's transferred to a closed barrel and bunged. This allows carbonation in the closed vessel. You get to sample from these barrels and it is a wonderful thing. If you find the Brewing Museum there is a pub behind it that serves the same beer and it was a half block away from our Pension!!

Cantillon was wonderful because the tour is self guided and starts off with a glass of one year old Lambic fresh out of the barrel. The equipment is still run by a line shaft with leather belts. The tour book gives you the ingredients and mash temps. One sign ask you not to kill any spiders, they keep the bugs from getting in the open fermentation vats!! The whole place was open to us as once you get past the antique brewing equipment you go through the stacks and stacks of wooden barrels aging some of the best beers around! We were able to talk to the owner and he was a very pleasant gentleman and even gave us a taste of a special beer he made for his sons birthday! What a classy operation! Now to transfer the tour book specs into my ProMash!!
 
The most beautiful brewery was New Glarus hands down! My favorite brewery to visit on earth is Lagunitas Chicago. We have to go everytime were in the area and we love it! the staff is awesome, the taproom is bitchin and the general vibe of the whole place is so positive and fun. I really want to check out the Petaluma brewery.
 
norsk said:
Visiting the Trappist breweries in Belgian was a lot of fun and informative.
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Going to Belgium in May on a Trappist Tour.

Very much looking forward to the beers and the new adventure.
 
Sierra Nevada in Chico CA. Great place, good food, good beer and a great town. I've gone off in another thread how great Chico is to visit so I wont do it again here.

For me, locally atm, back in the day, Flying Dog. Before MD was stupid about brewery tours and consumption on the property. You'd pay $5 and get a pint glass with 5 or so unpressed bottle caps in it which was your currency. You could get 6oz samples in your pint glass for a cap but people would leave their caps laying around so you could really drink from open to close for $5. Our tour guide also handed out caps at the end of the tour. It was a good time, indeed.
 
I liked Caracole in Belgium best. The guides were 2 very lovely young women who spoke perfect English and understood the brewing process well enough to give good answers to my questions. I rarely do brewery tours because most of the guides have no real knowledge of brewing and can't give a decent answer to any but the most basic question. And honestly, as a long time homebrewer touring another brewery and looking at big kettles, big mash tun and big fermenters is kind of boring, just show me to the taproom and let me sample your beer please.
 
I recently had a tour of Rebellion Brewery in Marlow, UK.
The tour was SO-SO but the atmosphere was great.
On the second Tuesday of every month they have a members night, where you are allowed freedom of every part of the brewery, its like the 5 o-clock quitting bell rang and they left everything where it was.
every corner you turn the were furkins and pins to help yourself to.
They also had this bloody great big grill fired up with all sorts of meat to eat.
The place is on an old farm, all the barns were stuffed with fermenters, hoppers and coppers, really relaxed and no one was rushed.
I had a great time.

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STEAM WHISTLE, Toronto, you get a beer to drink durring tour if you get good guide, they hand you another beer every time you pass a staff lounge.
 
Kona Brewing in Hawaii. Small groups, quick tour and then the group sits at a table outside at the pub and they bring pitchers of several beers and tell you about them as you taste them.
And you are in Hawaii ;-)
 
I don't know what it is (I was high) but the Heineken in Amsterdam at the brewery tasted amazing. I drank a lot of Heineken while there and it tastes SO much different than what we get here.
 
Caution Brewery, Denver, CO.

First time there was with a bus full of partiers. They were cool as hell and gave us a tour of their operation.
 
454k30 said:
Sockeye in Boise, ID. Those guys treated us to a great tour and many samples of their work.
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Great little brewery. We just had our monthly meeting there last week. Very relaxed and they answer a ton of technical questions. Got to sample new beers that hadn't hit the market and get great insight of their future plans.

Almost all the breweries here in the Treasure Valley give great tours.

In Hood River I enjoyed Pfriem as the guys gave a good behind the scenes tour and great samples.

Full Sail was good as the tour we got, I got to push the button to move 600 bbl over to a bite tank. Really cool bottling machines and interesting moves my them as they are going more towards PET kegs.

Logsdon Farmhouse was awesome as it is a really small sour brewery and those guys are very laid back and willing to give insight. They were even brewing and got to help them a bit (carried grains to get crushed lol) which was awesome and got to climb over cases of year + beers to find some extra cellar beers to bring home.
 
The tour of the AB brewery here in St. Louis used to be very good. A beautiful historic brewery with gleaming copper kettles with wrought iron everywhere. I took the tour this past fall for the first time in years and the copper kettles were gone, replaced with stainless. Just not the same.

They used to take you to a number of buildings, but now you have to pay for an extended tour. :(
 

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