Best Brewery Tour you've done

[nukonamo]

Yuengling...because its old
Victory....because of the attached restaurant.
Weyerbacher...because the tour was 15 min and the sampling lasted long enough to get a good buzz

 

[boortzie]

Whenever we go on vacation, SWMBO and I try to visit at least one local brewery. Our top two favorites thus far are Flying Dog in Frederick, MD and Maui Brewing in, well, Maui. Flying Dog does a solid tour with knowledgeable tour guides, great history, and a tasting room after the tour with some "brewery only" beers to try. That, and they make you yell profanity at various points during the tour, just because it makes the tour guides laugh. Seriously. At Maui Brewing, even though the tour is just okay, you can't beat it for the setting.

 

[UnDeadPresident]

Whenever we go on vacation, SWMBO and I try to visit at least one local brewery. Our top two favorites thus far are Flying Dog in Frederick, MD and Maui Brewing in, well, Maui. Flying Dog does a solid tour with knowledgeable tour guides, great history, and a tasting room after the tour with some "brewery only" beers to try. That, and they make you yell profanity at various points during the tour, just because it makes the tour guides laugh. Seriously. At Maui Brewing, even though the tour is just okay, you can't beat it for the setting.

I wish I had gotten to see the Flying Dog brewery before they moved from Denver to MD. Although the distillery that moved in after them also does tours, and has a really good restaurant attached. But if I ever find myself in the MD area, I'll have to check out their new digs. Thanks for the tip.

 

[Bulls Beers]

I've been to some really cool brewery tours.
In Prague I was able to watch a batch being brewed at U Medvidku.. It's a small brew pub. The brewer didn't speak that much English, but we could communicate.
This past fall I did the Pilsner Urquell brew tour in Pilzn, Czech Republic. Great tour. Went down in the caves were they used to lager their beer. Drank unfiltered Pilsner Urquell, right from open vats..

I did the Weihenstephan brew tour in Freising Germany. This is the oldest brewery in the world. Amazing beer. Did this tour twice.
While in Munich I went to the Andechs monastery and walked there tour. Not a huge brewery, but I love their beer.
Sam Adams test brewery in Boston. Kinda cool. Especially since it's in my back yard.

 

[kevinb]

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.

+1 on Harpoon.

 

[hoppyhoppyhippo]

Yuengling...because its old
Victory....because of the attached restaurant.
Weyerbacher...because the tour was 15 min and the sampling lasted long enough to get a good buzz

The Victory Brew Pub is awesome. For starters the negative was they had a server outage or something like that that caused a super long wait time. First cool thing was they walked out cause of their Storm King Crunch ice cream. Which is awesome. Then we got the Trice Fries which were awesome. Then I got the Prime and Cheese and that was awesome. Not to mention I had like 3 or 4 Hop Wallops from cask.

 

[TheMagicHatter]

Weyerbacher...because the tour was 15 min and the sampling lasted long enough to get a good buzz

Weyerbacher is a great little tour. Not much to the place, but the tour guide is knowledgeable and funny. But the draw is definitely the tasting room. You can sample one of everything they have on tap, which is usually a decently selection. On top of it, most of their beers are over 7% abv, so you do get a nice buzz.

That aside, I've been to Magic Hat, which was kind of a letdown for me being that it was an elevated tour. Informative, but not what I expected.

 

[masskrug]

Brouwer ij Henri Maes in Bruges, Belgium. I didn't matter where I went in Belgium, I was offered fantastic beers (and candy) at every stop!

 

[BrewPilot74]

+1 on Abita near New Orleans, great tour.

4X in Brisbane, Australia was awesome. It starts out in a little movie theater where they show you clips of their TV commercials over the years. Being an American, I found some if them to be hilarious, some pretty risque and others down right strange, but cool. The tour was good but standard and it ended in a bar where they gave 5 beers. Overall a great time.

 

[November]

Tenaya Creek. They do private tours and if they know you are a home brewer they give a lot of technical information and tricks to use.

 

[Channel66]

I enjoyed my allagash tour a lot, I love their beers though, and they are local.

 

[day_trippr]

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!

 

[WSB-MBC]

I'm going to Germany this Sept and can't wait to visit some breweries

 

[Shooter]

I just realized, I forgot one, Kona Brewing. The tour was about ten or fifteen minutes, followed by sitting at a table in the restaurant and drinking beer samples for half an hour.

 

[Beergazzi]

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.

 

[christopherrburns]

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.

 

[APendejo]

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

 

[bferullo]

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.

 

[Shooter]

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

Holy #$&! I'd forgotten about this one. I've been on it as well, probably around 1977, would have been about five years old.

 

[norsk]

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....

 

[Channel66]

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....

Lifetime goal of mine is to visit the Abbeys. So very very jealous.

 

[BreezyBrew]

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.

 

[WhiskeySix]

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.

 

[g-love]

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.

 

[Tiber_Brew]

Hands down it has to be Weihenstephan Brewery in Freising, Bavaria, Germany.

 

[ipaman00]

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.

+1

 

[GravyTrain77]

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.

The new beer hall is incredible also.

 

[beerloaf]

Yuengling's tour is the sh*t. I grew up in Pottsville.

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

 

[sfly19]

International would have to be Fuller's and domestic would be Surly.

 

[SupervisingChildren]

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.