Boston Area Tour ideas

Hit up Chelsea and Everett ... Idle Hands and Nightshift are right next to each other with Mystic being 1.5 miles away. All have free parking. Call ahead for tours though they do tastings during these hours. Nightshift is a taproom more or less though they will give you a taste before you want to plunk down some cash for a pour.

Mystic Brewery
Saturdays 12:00 PM - 5:00 PM

Idle Hands Brewing
Saturdays 12 – 4 pm

Nightshift Brewing
Saturday, 12-5pm

 

Jack's Abby takes you through their brewing area after hanging out in the taproom, but it's not much of a tour if you've ever been to a brewery before. Pretty much the same goes for Night Shift.

Mystic, which has a large and nice taproom, does a pretty decent tour on Saturday, but again, it's pretty much just showing you around their small operations.

 

Worth the visit IMO if you have never been ... beer hall is pretty epic, tours - "Saturday from 11:20 AM to 6:00 PM (starting every 20 minutes)". Get there early, the place can get packed quick.

 

Did Harpoon on Saturday.
Ran a little late so didn't get there until 11:20am, first tour we could get was 12:20. Tour is an hour, we hung around a little bit after...left at 2 and there was a line probably 30-50 deep just to get in the door, as they were at capacity.

 

Jacks Abby, Mystic, Night Shift, AND Idle Hands - Sounds like one heck of a Birthday! Enjoy.

 

Jacks Abby isn't doing tours until their expansion is done.

 

Is it bad that tastings is all I ever care about at brewery visits? Once you've been on a couple tours, so many are the same. However, I do recommend the Mystic tour. It's not grand, but it's interesting seeing as they're not so much of a brewery as they are a fermentorium, and Brian (the founder) who's a cool guy provides some fun information.

If you're trying to actually avoid tastings for some reason (minimize the alcohol intake as you're driving around?) it's hard to at the places mentioned above because it's especially easy to have more than your fair share at Mystic, JA, and even NightShift. It's been a while since I've been to Nightshift and Idle hands but they didn't seem to do tours when I visited...and the place was so small anyway you could practically see everything from the tasting area.

 

LOL ... I prefer tours of the barrels while the brewer starts pulling nails.

 

Blue hills brewery also does saturday tastings I believe if you are going all out.
Mystic, idle hands, nightshift, harpoon to blue hills then jacks. Probably all possible in an afternoon but you may need a designated driver. And all very possible yourself rather than the tour that charges a fortune for free tastings.

 

BBC / Sam Adams is a pretty interesting tour besides the tasting.
Parking isn't wonderful, though I have been able to find it the couple times I've been there (I do have good parking car-ma though ) However, it is just a couple minutes walk from the nearest orange line stop. If I was doing a brewery crawl, I'd think hard about using public transport. Obviously Jack's Abby is different (though they are a stone's throw from the purple line / commuter rail.)

 

Blue Hills is a little out of the way on that loop, and really, really not worth it, IMO.

Just my 2 cents.

 

I don't think there is any way this could be done in an afternoon. It takes a long time just to get place-to-place, and if you're either enjoying beer or asking people about equipment and stuff, there's just no way to do it. Jack's Abbey closes at 5 on Saturday.

I actually did something similar with friends this weekend, we started at Sam Adams at 11:30 catching the 11:45 tour. Swung by CBC for lunch, then over to Idle Hands barely in time to sample before closing, fortunately everyone at Night Shift was hanging out and we stayed until they kicked us out at 6:30 and still didn't make it over to Harpoon before 7. It was a long lunch at CBC but you've really got to allocate at least an hour per brewery and 20-30 minutes between for travel.

A person might be able to do Mystic-Idle Hands-Night Shift & Jack's Abbey all in one afternoon, if you were at the first one just as they opened at noon. But only because of how close those three are.

 

Really?? Perhaps we are just hitting the new beers now but we have easily done mystic/idle hands/ and night shift in 90 minutes. We definitely managed the trinity, harpoon and jacks all in one afternoon and stopped by to buy a growler at trillium. Its not really a push it depends how much you want to talk brewing style, I suppose the OP did state they wanted tours rather than tastings which is the opposite from us.
If you are philistines like us and just want to enjoy leisurely tastings then buy and move on its is doable in one afternoon, perhaps minus Blue Hills but I felt someone had to at least mention them.

 

Idle Hands took less than 20 minutes, but Night Shift was still swamped when we got over there. The line wasn't untenable by any means but it did add quite a bit of time to the visit. Part of it is the flight set up - instead of giving you a tray with your four options you have to go back and have your glass refilled for each additional sample.

Similarly when we got to Harpoon the beer hall was packed. It was just beginning to loosen up but you pretty much had to wait for a group to leave before your group could get in.

I'm sure come winter it'll be easier, but on a late Saturday afternoon in summer these places are getting quite a bit of traffic.