Best Brewrey Tours

I enjoyed Red Hook. You pay $1 for probably the equivalent of 2.5 beers, plus you get to keep the sampler glass. When I was there, they were out of tasting glasses, the guy handed out full pint glasses instead.

Canis

 

New Belgium was the best tour I've taken, and I've probably done about 12-15. Abita was by far the worst. Green Flash was more in depth than the others that I've taken, aside from New Belgium, and I agree that Lagunitas was great and very funny. Definitely the most unique.

 

I have been to the AB Plant in Fairfield California. It was pretty cool to see something that was on a whole different scale from every other brewery tour I have ever been on.

I went to fullers a few years ago and it was easily the best of all the 20+ tours I have been on. The guide was smart and knew a ton about brewing and beer (wasn't just reading from a script). Plus the brewery was historical but had a bunch of cool modern stuff (keg sorting robot). The tasting area was really cool looking. Plus the tour was like 3 hours and once they had gone through the brewery the rest of the time was just all you can drink until time ran out. They let you try the whole fuller's and gale's line. They let you try to use a hand pump, and look in the cask cellar. Plus they busted out some older vintage ales.

 

I think sam adams is great... i love that they don't charge but take donations (last week was for hurricane sandy). samples are usually blah but they're free and they give you 21 oz of free beer so you can't really complain. also, the party bus to doyles makes it worth it afterwards (specifically the onion rings at doyles)

 

Smuttynose: you start tasting when you get there, they get in really depth with the brewing process and more tasting at the end.But the biggest thing for me is chatting up the Smutty Crew, they never seem to mind answering a ton of questions one would have.

 

New Glarus Hard Hat Tour !!! You need to book about 6 - 8 weeks ahead of time because they are always filled. We had the senior brewmaster as our guide for the 3 hour (!) tour. Truly behind the scenes; we almost got washed away when they drained a filter press on the specialty line. Got a 30 minute discussion with the big boss too. Really a good tour. Our guide said that it is interesting because there are three people who rotate doing the hardhat tours and depending on which one you get, you end up with a different tour because they focus on different things. Our guide was working on the new sour tanks, so we got lots of info on that.

 

Not necessarily the most beautiful tour or anything but Berkshire Brewing was definitely the geekiest tour I’ve been on. I’ve never experienced a tour guide that went into such detail of their brewing science. He was really passionate and articulated very well. What was fun to see is that there were a number of geeks in the crowd who obviously homebrew a lot, and they really peppered the guide with a lot of questions on detailed brewing minutiae that I’ve never heard people ask on tours before, yet the guy never flinched – he answered everything without hesitation and gave enthusiastic explanations in a way that pleased the geeks yet was understandable to noobs in the crowd.

And there were generous samples afterwards, too.