Boston Area Tour ideas

Could I ask for some constructive feedback? What did you not enjoy about your visit to BHB? We probably have 50-100 people a week come in for our complimentary tastings and they seem to have a great time. Just curious.

 

IMO a big part is the location. If someone is going around Boston, them coming down to Canton for one brewery is a lot of travel time, even not counting traffic up and down 93.

 

1. Beers I tasted were in a bottle, not on tap - ok, this is not a huge issue, but given that there was a tap setup, I was pretty confused. (One was served from a growler) These things are probably fine, when you are Hill Farmstead, or at ACBF, and emptying the bottle/growler every 10 minutes - when you're somewhat out of the way, not highly trafficked, and it's very hot out, not sure I feel great about this. Again, this is just me being super picky.
2. Bottles/growlers were not kept in fridge - kept in a bucket with like, 5 pieces of ice. Pieces, as in cubes.
3. Day was very hot. I think you see where I'm going with these first 3 points. Probably the worst condition beer I've ever been served at a brewery itself.
4. Pretty weak beer selection the day I was there - a wheat beer, three fruited variants, and a Kolsch. I wanted to try the pale ale and double IPA but was told they were not being tasted. Perhaps mix it up a little more - take out one or two of the fruited variants of the wheat beer and provide more of a selection.
5. Staffer was incredibly unattentive to me and the friend I was there with - odd, because in the 30 minutes or so in which we were there, the only other people who were there were people who seemed to be friends of the staffer - they had a long discussion about something completely un-beer related while we waited about 10 minutes in between ~1 oz pours.

I'm also not a huge fan of the beer, but let me tell you, that's not the reason I was not pleased with my visit. I bought some anyway, as I always do at a brewery that has free tastings, whether I am a huge fan of the beer or not.

I drink Blue Hills on tap occasionally and will continue to do so. Will I go back to the brewery? No.

 

Thank you for the feedback.
There is nothing I can do about the weather. When it's really hot/cold outside, it affects the temp in here.
We only have a three tap system up front, and most times we have 8-12 styles to sample, so we naturally resort to pouring straight from the bottle.
But as for the gentleman pouring the beers, I will talk to him about his selection size and also his customer service skills. Thank you for pointing this out for my attention.

 

Gotcha. So normally you also do have some beers on tap to sample? That would be a big plus. I understand you cannot control the weather - and I do not fault you for it - but the condition of the beer I was served was pretty much unacceptable, and I don't think it would be that hard to store the beers in the cooler right across the room when people aren't sampling them instead of either leaving them out opened on the counter or in a bucket with a couple of ice cubes.

 

Normally we use bottles, not the tap tower. Like I said, too many styles versus taps. But I agree about the conditions of the bottles/ice; that can be adjusted to improve the visitors' experience.

 

Tap towers are not cheap, my friends. If we had an unlimited budget, I'd add air conditioning too :>

 

I'm not sure I understand this. Is there an issue having a couple of beers on tap in your already-existing tap tower and maybe supplement the tasting with bottles?

 

No, there really is no reason why, we just don't "normally" do it. But now that I know it's something guests really want, I will bring it up to the owners.