Best Brewery Tour Experiences

Sierra Nevada in Asheville, NC is pretty cool because it's basically like a museum. Other than that, IMHO brewery tours are pretty much going the way of the dodo. For the most part, once you've seen one you've seen them all.

 

Best tours: 5 way tie between Rhinegeist, West Sixth, Dogfish Head, Jailbreak and DC Brau.

Worst tour: Maybe I came on a bad day, but Heavy Seas' tour (and taproom) was less than stellar. Good beer though.

 

I've only been on three, two were guided ones and one was an impromptu one.

First one was Stone in Escondido. Beatiful area, great restaurant, and at the end, we had a flight of beers on tap which was great. I was pretty new to beer still but it was one of the things that deepened my interest.

Second one was Left Hand. Much more informal tour than the Stone one. Talked about the history of the brewery before the tour got started. You got to take a beer along with you, the tour guide even had one. Got to see their main brewing facilities, their bottling line and their nitro canning area (super cool).

Third and most recent was Ballast Point's Long Beach taproom. I was with a few of my tasting group members early this year (before COVID) and the taproom manager noticed us. He offered to give us a tour. Since they're a network brewery, every facility has a small brew system, this one also acted as a barrel and foeder room. He told us about the history of the brewery, their struggle with being bought by Constellation (got some really great insight about how it was a total shitshow for them) and their optimism for the future with their new owners.

 

I have toured a number of breweries but my two favorite tours hands down have been Pilsner Urquell and Sierra Nevada Mills River NC.

Pilsner Urquell (September 2019)

The tour took 1 hour and 40 minutes. This tour was on par with the tour given at Sierra Nevada – Mills River, NC.

The most fascinating portion of the tour for me was going into the cellars where they used to ferment/lager their beers before they ‘modernized’ in 2004. The stated claim for why they still produce beer the ‘old way’ is as a quality control effort – to ensure that the beers being produced in stainless steel is ‘exactly’ the same as how the beer used to be produced.

Sierra Nevada in Mills River, NC (November 2017)

The facility is absolutely gorgeous!! They have a large taproom/restaurant where there are lots of beer choices beyond the SN beers we can buy at the store. I ate two meals there and they were excellent. There is an outdoor area with a bandstand. It was cool/cold at the time I was there so no real activity at the time but I was told they bring in bands in the warm times of the year (weekends).

I took a 90 minute tour of the brewery. The brewery is beautiful and this was the best brewery tour I have ever attended.

There are many acres of land surrounding the building that will soon be open for some short hiking.

Cheers!

 

Great Brewery, great tours, fabulous food, nice gift shop. I went to the first concert they had there, The Drive By Truckers, Jason Isbell was still in the band then, awesome show, good times
Well worth checking out if you are in the AVL area.

 

There is a 'USA Today' poll every year asking this question. Here's a link to the 2020 poll results: https://www.10best.com/awards/travel/best-brewery-tour-2020/ It seems like the same 8-10 breweries are in the top 10 each year, so this is a good list from popularity voting.

I can attest that Bell's (second place in the poll) is a good tour. Also, many years ago I enjoyed the tour at Lakefront Brewing in Milwaukee. On that tour you get to sing the theme song of the Laverne & Shirley TV show from the 80s (?) which was set in Milwaukee and the two stars worked in a brewery.

 

Dovetail in Chicago. In not many breweries do you get to see a coolship and open fermenters.

 

I've toured a lot of places. After the first few, it's mostly for the free samples - how many times can you walk around - Mash tun, lauter tank, boil kettle, fermenters, packaging line.
A few that are memorable are those that have some hook or more info - like Sam Adams in Boston, Magic Hat had a great tour, I don't know if they've changed it up. Harpoon is pretty informative, and Ommegang is a great setting.

 

Sierra Nevada Chico and Mills River
Bell's
Fuller's
Ayinger
Many others that are lesser known.

As a longtime Homebrewer and Engineer by training, I get something out of most tours.

 

Allagash.

 

Anchor Steam '99 being shown around by Mr. Fritz Maytag. Good times.

 

New Glarus is a self-guided tour, so you have to make up your own 'script' but if you enjoy seeing a modern production facility this is for you.

It's been too long ago, so I don't recall if you had to pay to take the tour. I'm pretty sure you had to buy the beer that you were permitted to drink while walking through the tour.

If it's a nice weather day, it's a joy to sit in their biergarten and drink their beers. Well really, it's a joy to drink their beers anywhere!

 

Me too!

Plus it has been my consistent experience that via being friendly and communicative you can enhance the experience.

As I posted last fall in one of my Czech beer trip reports:

"My wife and I took a tour of the Staropramen Brewery today (it was a 3 minute walk from our hotel). Before the tour my wife asked: Are you going to ask a bunch of (annoying) questions during the tour? She didn’t actually say the words “annoying” but via the tone I got the ‘message’. My response to her questions was: absolutely!!"

Cheers!

 

Really enjoyed the Sam Adams tour, granted it was years ago, but fun and informative!

 

My top picks:

Sierra Nevada - Mills River and Chico (both cool for different reasons). Drinking Porter or Pale Ale right from the brite was just awesome, along with some other goodies they had which included some sour we got to try in their pilot area.

Anchor - Insane, quirky facility. Just so retro and like you are thrown back in time. Just a really cool tour!

Yuengling (original location) - Like Anchor, it's quirky and really interesting. Dark, grungy and hot. Just so different from most.

Notable mentions:

Victory in Parkesburg... While they have the self-guided tour, we did a private tour once for my birthday where we actually got to go all around with a guide and check it all our in detail. So that was cool!

Lagunitas in CA - While the tour itself isn't too crazy, the pre-tasting room and the staff was awesome. Was just a fun vibe.



Most others are just the same old. Wish we got to do a tour or two while in Germany last year, but never got the chance. Next time, hopefully!

 

I would happily repeat any of these three (order of personal preference), all were outstanding.

Firestone Walker - Paso Robles, CA
(easily the best collection and quality of beers offered during the tour for my palate and preferences)

Honorable Mention:
Sierra Nevada - Chico, CA
Deschutes - Bend, OR

 

Yuengling is good for the atmosphere and wandering around in the old caves. Troegs is nice, beer at the beginning, beer halfway through, beer at the end. While back in the old countrye in Cornwall a few years back, our tour included a big ol cornish pasty. That was nice.

 

New Belgium in Asheville is amazing. Gorgeous campus and you get more than your money's worth of samples