Tour of the Tours - Installment FiveSam Adams Brewery - Boston, MA

Many existing businesses can fall into one of two types: the private owned mom and pop shop, and the widely known commercial brand. There are advantages and disadvantages to both. Mom and pop shops are cozy and personal, but sometimes have restricted hours and limited locations. Commercial business products are priced conveniently and are widely available, but the company lacks a relationship with the customer, and often takes advantage of the middle and lower classes to keep prices affordable. Mom and pop shops rely on the local community and word of mouth to support their business. Commercial businesses rely on paid advertisement through many different platforms. Breweries are no different.

The nature of breweries, however, always seems to lean toward growth, while many privately owned shops and restaurants are satisfied with staying small. Almost every brewery I've been to has either just expanded, is currently expanding, or has plans to expand. But it's not about locations, it's about output - how much beer they can make and distribute within a period of time while maintaining quality and consistency. This is how microbreweries (breweries that produce less than 15,000 barrels per year) slowly become one of the giants like Anheuser-Busch (though that destination is not always desirable). Many breweries keep their mom and pop likeness by pledging to focus on quality rather than quantity. Some are even able to achieve both. But regardless of their size and level of corporate domination, as long as they continue to produce good beer, customers will keep knocking on their door for more, and perhaps a tour!

Sam Adams Brewery - Boston, MA

The Sam Adams brand meant something quite different to me before I ventured to Boston, Mass to take their tour. My perception of their company was a product of their advertisements depicting burly, bearded men in overalls that are passionate and serious about their beer. The commercials often mention the founder and brewer, Jim Koch, who is celebrated as a pioneer of the microbrewery movement, which made me believe this brewery must be a little smaller than I thought. I'm watching all of these earth tones and crafted suds float by on my screen, and I'm feeling all cozy inside. BAM! It's that mom and pop feel, but with many times the output and availability.

It wasn't until I walked into the brewery that I realized my skewed perception was a result of expensive, well done advertisement. Their claims are all true, but the things they said with everything but words were a lie. Through their ads, they veiled their gigantic commercialism with that mom and pop feel, which was completely vacant from the reality of their brewery. It seemed their ads were reminiscent of how the brewery was years ago. But that coziness had long since been chased out by the cold wind of corporate apathy.

The brewery is smack-dab in the middle of a Boston suburb, as a grand meatball amongst the spaghetti of many one way streets. Walking up to the brewery, I realized the company has spent a lot of dough on this place. It was crowded with tourists from other states and countries, but not so much that movement was inhibited. My eyes were overwhelmed with the sight of countless banners and displays of beerchievements, history, and interactive screens that blared ads and informational blips. The amount of money they spent on making this place look nice has got to be at least six figures long. The earth tones, beards, and honest-sounding quotes weren't fooling me anymore. This place is sooooo commercial.

Luckily, my new found perception didn't change how their beer tastes, and I was still enjoying myself very much. The tour was free, but started out with a voluntary donation to a local charity. They may have a lot of money and come off a bit impersonal as a company, but they're definitely not greedy. We proceeded to a room where the guide explained the brewing ingredients, and actually had barrels full of hops and two kinds of barley to pass around for smelling/tasting. Very unique! We continued to the brewing room testing laboratory. Turns out, this brewery tour isn't even of an actual production brewery, but of the place where they invent/perfect their beers. The guide mentioned the lab workers and a bit about their processes. It was all a bit weird, but cool nonetheless. This also meant there were no bottling/canning lines to watch, and that lovely, malty scent I so look forward to was absent from the air. It was saddening, but the promise of free, delicious beer kept me interested.

The guide was friendly, funny, knowledgeable, and well rehearsed, but seemed a bit insecure when someone asked questions that were out of the ordinary. He would choke up a bit, and say "uhhhh" a lot, but he was able to get through the answer. There was also a group of incredibly obnoxious 20something women that he allowed to walk all over him in the tasting room. He wasn't the best at controlling the crowd, but such is the product of a volunteer. When he wasn't being talked over by rude women, or spooked by weird questions, he was a great tour guide (and handsome too!). 

The tasting room was furnished with several tables surrounded by chairs, and a large, ornate bar. The excitement built as we watched one of the workers fill pitcher after pitcher of beer, all for our tasting pleasure. The guide continued his spiel by teaching us how to properly taste beer. We were all given a tasting glass to keep, and were allowed to fill them family style, as we shared a pitcher or two per table. We tasted the Boston Lager, Harvest Pumpkin Ale, and Alpine Spring. I was surprised they were giving us pumpkin ale in late January, but I couldn't have been happier! I've tried probably six different pumpkin ales in my life, and this one is now my top favorite. I would accustom the experience to something like taking a giant chomp out of a pumpkin, and then that chomp magically turning into delicious beer in my mouth. It actually tastes like pumpkin instead of just a bunch of pie spices. The flavor is rich, but not overbearing. Everything is balanced and perfectly flavored. I was sad it was January and not October.

Though it wasn't actually part of the tour, we were told that if we took their free trolly to Doyle's Cafe and ordered a pint of Sam Adams, we would get to keep the beer glass. I'm a sucker for a good deal, so I indulged. The trolly was like a party bus, and the driver was hysterically funny. If you ever go on this tour, the trolly ride to Doyle's is a must!

Ok, so the brewery tour isn't at an actual production brewery, and the feel is a bit corporate, but I think they've done a good job of not forgetting their roots as a little microbrewery. They're not greedy, and they spent a lot of money on giving out free beer, free tasting glasses, and free tours of their expensive facility. I had a blast, and found a new favorite beer. A trip to Boston is not complete without a tour of the Sam Adams... uhhh... brew-atory! 

Happy Touring!


Next Up: Weyerbacher Brewery - Easton, PA

Tour of the Tours - Installment FourRiver Horse Brewery - Lambertville, NJ

I think it's safe to say that in any classroom situation, the teacher/professor can either make or break the class. Profs that teach subjects you hate, but they themselves are absurdly awesome, create a classroom atmosphere you can't help but love. The same can be said for tour guides giving brewery tours. Even if you don't like beer, the tour guide has the ability to make it an awesome experience for beer lovers and haters alike.

Tour guides are always the unknown in the touring equation. You know there's going to be beer, and you can probably find a bunch of pictures of their brewery online, but the tour guide is almost always a surprise. Some breweries, like Yuengling, don't really need a great tour guide. The place sells itself. But others (remember Brooklyn Brewery?) need a guide that can convince a crowd of 100 tipsy, elbow-bumpin hipsters that they're having a great time, even without any free samples. The job is tough, and the crowds are thirsty, but put the right man or woman on the job, and the result will be customers that swear by the beer they've just tasted.

Unfortunately, giving free beer away can be costly for a brewery, so most rely on volunteers that may or may not be all that great at the tour giving gig. I've experienced situations where I thought they should be paying the guide a salary, and where I thought they would be better off letting the beer sell itself instead of having some boring, soft-spoken clown babbling on and on about things they don't fully understand. I'm no expert by any means, and I'm not saying I could do a better job than the worst of them, but it doesn't take an expert to know when someone is talking out of their ass! Needless to say, mediocre tour experiences result in the beer or brewery atmosphere needing to be really amazing for me to feel like I had a good time. And even though I'm not paying for the experience, it's in the brewery's best interest for me to enjoy myself so I continue to buy their beer. Tour guides, in a way, are the company's way of making a sales pitch to the public. A bad pitch won't kill sales, but it definitely doesn't help them. If you're going to make a sales pitch, make it a damn good one, or don't make it at all. No one wants their company to be remembered as mediocre.

River Horse Brewery - Lambertville, NJ

Lets get some of this terminology out of the way. For those of you that don't know, "river horse" is another name for a hippopotamus. And the name is fitting because the brewery is wedged between the Delaware river and the canal (though there aren't any hippos around). The two bodies of water make a nice cradle for this rather small place at the end of a quiet street. The brewery carries the quaintness of the town, and makes for a lovely stop on an afternoon jaunt. Even the interior is very fitting. The decor is tasteful and even a bit classy. The size of the tasting room, however, is very tiny. Twenty people in there would make a can of sardines feel more spacious. On this particular Sunday, it was full, but not cramped. And luckily so, as the rest of the brewery offered a similar amount of standing space. If there was one thing I could say about this brewery, it would be that they did not waste any room! They spoke of expansion within their current space (additional fermentation tanks), but they clearly need a few more rooms or buildings! I suppose such a thing would be difficult when you're the oreo cream of a canal-river sandwich. 

Having arrived several minutes before the next tour, we decided to grab a few tastes first (more on those later). The tour was ready go before we were, so we quickly sloshed down our beer and shuffled after the tail end of the beer-enthusiast train. Our tour guide, a middle-aged, timid man who seemed a bit out of his element, lead us from room to room and explained all of the regular processes you hear on every brewery tour. He gave us the lowdown on River Horse history, and explained what an IPA is. (India Pale Ale - originally dubbed as such during the 1700's for it's popularity in India. The higher hop and alcohol content kept the beer fresh on it's trip from England to India, while other beers would spoil and go flat.) He spoke slowly and took great pauses between sentences. It wasn't anything drastic or incredibly awkward, but it definitely induced several yawns. I couldn't help but stare at the remaining two ounces of beer left in the glass he was walking around with, wondering if he was ever going to drink it. There were more than enough opportunities and moments minutes of silence to knock them back. I was more interested in those two ounces than in what he was saying, not because I don't like it when people don't finish their beer, but because of the way he was dishing out the information... boooooooorrrringgggggggggg. He did his job, and knew a whole lot about the ins and outs of the brewery and brewing processes. But above all else, 

I was ready to lean back 

against a pallet 

of grain 

and 

catch 

a 

few...

Zzzzzzz.....

But maybe my expectations are just too high. Here I am, getting this free tour and usually free beer, and I'm also expecting to be entertained. A bit too much? I don't know. I just want to be excited about their beer! That's really hard to do when the tour guide's demeanor better lends itself to calming sugar-filled children with ADHD to sleep. I know he was a volunteer, and I know you can't pick the people that work for free, but tour giving is a pumped, caffeine-injected, people-person's world. Get me excited about buying your product or I'll buy something else!

The best part about my last statement is that it's not entirely true. If your beer is good, I'll buy it anyway. But every time I do, I'll remember the tour I took and wish it was more interesting! And then I'll think about tours that actually were interesting. And then I'll smile and buy some of their beer, too. Aaaannnd...

BEER!

That caught your attention, didn't it? Let's talk more about beer, and less about sleep-inducing tour guides. $1 got us 4 different 4oz samples. The two most notable were the Oatmeal Milk Stout, and Hop-A-Lot-A-Mus (double IPA). When I think milk stout, I think River Horse, and also about that adorable, little hippo with utters pictured on the side of the six pack. The beer and the box art are equally fantastic. This near-black stout is smooth and creamy, and has a bit of milk sweetness to it while being all malty-oatsy on my tongue. If there was ever a cow that ate oatmeal and drank beer all day, this is what the milk would taste like. Mmmmmm... ooooooooooooooo!

Hop-A-Lot-A-Mus is unlike any beer I've ever tried. I mean this in the way that I have never been so repulsed by the amount of hops in a particular beer ever before. By now, you should know that I'm no hophead, but this might have enough bitterness to scare away the lesser devout hop lover. It may have been that the flavor profiles were given to us in reverse order (in my opinion, it should go by color from light to dark - similar to tasting white wine before red). We had the sweeter, darker beer first, and this lighter, intensely hoppy beer last. I couldn't even finish the little, 4oz sample. I honestly almost got sick, and for this, I salute River Horse. Such an abominably hops-crammed beer has probably made several hop enthusiasts happier than a tot on Christmas morn'. I, however, will stick with my oatmeal milk stout! 

They also have a beer called Hop Hazard. I've always made it a point to try IPAs when I go on tours, but given the history, I don't think I'd ever put myself through the trouble with this one!

It was a good time, and they really do have some tasty beer. A little improvement on the tour-giver, and they've got gold! Better yet, tastier beer! (Good times make beer taste better!) They're small, they've got heart, and they have my dollar. If you love hops, you're now bound to stop by and try this Hop-A-Lot-A-Mus nonsense. Just grab a cup of coffee before you go in case you take the tour. ;)

Hoppy Touring!

Next Up: Sam Adams Brewery - Boston, MA

Tour of the Tours - Installment ThreeYuengling Brewery - Pottsville, PA

Keeping with the flow of offering tips before sips, here are a few about what to expect on an average tour...

There are several things consistent through just about every brewery tour I've taken. They're going to discuss the four essential ingredients for making beer, the two main types of beer and what makes them different, and how various kinds of yeasts eat the sugars in the wort. They'll point to their fermentation tanks and make exaggerated hand gestures to illustrate the aforementioned facts and processes. And at some point, you'll probably wish you were getting some hands on experience with beer consumption rather than beer production. But you need not fret! Most tours are less than a half hour long, so the highly desired tasting is never too far from taste-bud ecstasy.

The best and most memorable tours are those that have what others do not. While most tours have a guide that is frothing at the mouth with brewery know-how, only one has bragging rights to say they're America's oldest brewery. If there's one thing you could add to a tour to make it better and more interesting, it's history. And Yuengling has more history than a world civilizations text book (ok... maybe not quite!). Breweries are not unlike a finely aged wine or cheese. Treated properly, they only get better as they get older.

Yuengling Brewery - Pottsville, PA

Having survived the prohibition era, 183 years of existence, and five generations of family ownership/operation among many other achievements, it's not surprising that Yuengling continues to grow as a staple beer on the East Coast of the US. I love trying new beer, and don't often buy the same beer twice. But Yuengling lager is definitely an exception. Businesses like this don't survive so many hardships and rough times without good reason.

There is a quaint little nook up on the hillside of Pottsville, PA that the Yuengling brewery likes to call home. Driving to the brewery, you might think you've taken a wrong turn into a residential area, but you're actually in the right place. Something as simple as walking in and finding where the tour starts is almost impossible without the signs that tell you where to go.
It's obvious there has been addition after addition to the building, which effectively created a maze of rooms for confusing guests into thinking they should have made that left turn at Albuquerque. But alas, the sound of voices and that wafting, beckoning scent lead me to the right place.

The tour started seconds after we arrived. About 30 of us were lead single file through each floor of the almost ancient brewery. Each wall, window, and piece of equipment or art had it's own unique story. The room with the fermentation tanks and mash tuns has a beautiful stained glass ceiling, and also murals that further illustrate the history of day to day operations. We snaked between tight spaces from room to room until we arrived outside. Lucky for us, they were bottling on this particular Monday. The tour guide said they mostly can at this location, so it was certainly a rare treat.

Walking into the bottling/canning room was almost my favorite part of the tour (free beer is always #1). If I could have drank in the air, I would have. It was a luscious smack in the face of buttery, malty, bliss I've only ever known to belong to Yuengling. I would have paid to stay in that room for the remainder of the day. Beyond the smell, watching the equipment do its thing was entrancing. The flow of our single file through the building was lost to the hypnotizing machinery and stunning scent of beer. People pushed past those snapping pics with their iphones and then found themselves being passed by once their own gaze was caught. The game of leap frog ended once the tour guide coaxed us from our dreamlike state with rumors of an underground cave.

Going down there was like the fellowship of the ring was being lead through the depths of Moria (minus the orcs and other baddies, of course). It was a real, honest-to-goodness, water-dripping-down-from-the-ceiling rock cave! Some of the brick still exists from when it was walled off during the prohibition. Pretty dang neat!

We surfaced shortly after our venture to the center of the earth to enjoy the fruits of so many years of labor.  But before I go into the beer, I'll say a few things about the lovely tour guide. She was great, and took care of the crowd like a mom does her brood of children (but not in the wiping-dirt-off-our-cheeks-with-her-spit kind of way). She kindly watched after us to make sure we didn't get lost, and taught us everything we needed to know about life at the brewery. She was funny, and incredibly knowledgeable of the business. She was clearly not someone hired from the outside just to babysit the tour guests. The brewery itself was so captivating that we probably could have had a poor tour guide and still had a great time. But her expertise was all the more helpful. Plus, she's the one that gave us free beer!

The sampling room (pictured above) was called the Rathskellar, and has been serving up fine brews since 1936. The walls and shelves are lined with an entire evolution of bottles and historic decorations. It even holds a cuckoo clock in homage to the German heritage of the Yuengling family. I was excited to enjoy a beer here as so many did before me. I didn't bother trying the lager, as it is a taste very familiar to my palate. Instead, I tried the porter and Lord Chesterfield Ale. The porter is really what you could expect from just about any porter, but with that buttery, Yuengling-y taste that comes from their signature use of corn grits. The Lord Chesterfield Ale is probably their hoppiest (really not THAT hoppy, though), and just plain delicious. Most of their offerings taste like different permutations of their lager, but the Chesterfield Ale really stands out on its own. Arlo and I even bought two Chesterfield Society mugs to enjoy at home!

If the tour wasn't enough history for you, you can gander through the gift shop/museum. It's the perfect place for any history buff, even if beer isn't your cup of tea. Those that enjoy both, as I do, are in for a big treat! Of all the brewery tours I've been on, this was my absolute favorite. Maybe I just lucked out with the fact that they were bottling, we had a great tour guide, and it wasn't too crowded. Or perhaps it's just the fact that so many years of existence and history make for a good time, anytime. Either way, I urge you: if you ever visit a brewery, make it this one! Disappointment is nearly impossible.

Here's to another 180 years of great beer!



Next Up: River Horse Brewery - Lambertville, NJ

Tour of the Tours - Installment TwoBrooklyn Brewery - Brooklyn, NY

Let me preface this with a few tidbits of brewery touring advice...

The time and day during which you decide to tour is crucial to how much you will enjoy it. For some breweries, you don't have any other options apart from the three hours they're open for touring on Saturdays. Others, you can pick any day of the week within a 10 hour window. In my experience, the fewer people on the tour, the better. Consider the tour as having a classroom atmosphere, but with alcohol. The smaller the teacher to student ratio, the less you will have to struggle to hear the guide, the fewer people you will tipsily bump into, and the more you will learn before the alcohol permeating your blood cells renders you slightly brainless. But really, you're going for a tasting, not a binge (unless you're at Harpoon), so it shouldn't get that far. ;) If you're concerned about it being too crowded, call ahead and ask about the best, quietest time to tour. And don't worry, I've never seen any brewery run out of booze because the crowd was too big! If your schedule allows it, try to go on a weekday when they're bottling/canning. It's nice to walk around the machinery and look at all the doo-dads and idle whirly-woos, but to see them in action is a mesmerizing, nose-tantalizing experience!

So there's your cheat sheet, people! Use it, or earn a failing grade as I did when I visited Brooklyn Brewery. Don't misinterpret me, the brewery was great, but it was my lack of the knowledge outlined in the previous paragraph that made the experience a bit hectic.

Brooklyn Brewery - Brooklyn, NY

Pictured above is the master brewer on site at BB. She is the brains behind all brews that come out of this location, including their latest pale ale, Hair of the Cat...

Ok, ok, all joking aside, isn't she a cutie!? This little kitty perched herself atop the swag booth, high above the masses of intoxicated hipsters, like a lone survivor in the zombie apocalypse. There was no way she was coming down to accept any pets from the mob, but she gladly posed for our pictures from her secure location. Note: drunk people love cute animals.

What? Beer? This is about beer? Oh... yes! Let's take it from the top. It was a chilly Saturday in Brooklyn, NY. Arlo and I decided it was best to go on one of the earlier tours, so as to avoid the crowd. Apparently, we weren't the only ones with this thought in mind, and spent a half hour digging our chins deep in our coats while we stood in line outside.

It. Was. Mobbed.

For those of you that don't know, Brooklyn is quickly becoming a hipster capital. And hipsters absolutely love beer. Hipsters also love supporting the local economy. Aaaaand they love being thrifty. I think you're starting to understand where I'm going with this. Beer + Local + Free Tour = perfect Saturday afternoon for every hipster within a 200 mile radius. As if standing in line just to enter the building wasn't enough, we then had to stand in line to buy tokens, after which we had to stand in line to use the tokens to buy beer. It was a zoo. The volume of sound inside was high above the level of a noisy bar, and rivaled that of a rock concert. Communication was by hand signals and lip reading only. The place was big, but simply not big enough to hold the capacity of people that swelled and swilled inside. Every time I tried to move from one place to another, people eyed me as I passed, as if to say, "I swear to God, if you bump my elbow and my beer goes everywhere, you're going to die." It was not the friendliest environment.

Once precious beer was in hand, we decided to wait in line (this place loves lines) for the tour. Thirty minutes later, and we were off to check out some of the quieter rooms of the facility - something my ears were dearly looking forward to. After all 100 of us (oh my god) walked 50 paces into the main room of the brewery, I quickly realized this is where we would stay for the next 15-20 minutes while the tour guide talked... and that was it. Normally, the tour is actually a tour, but this wasn't possible with such a large crowd. I was fairly disappointed at first. But the absolute saving grace of all of this was the tour guide himself. He was hilarious! He gave the normal brewery speech about how beer is made with water, hops, yeast, malt, blahblahblah, all the while sneaking in subtle quips. My favorite part was his story about the brewery's history with the mafia. It was crazy enough to be true! It's not easy to manage such a large crowd, let alone an intoxicated one, but he did so with finesse, and only using his words! He was, by far, my favorite guide out of all the tours I'll cover in this blog.

Braaaaiinnnnnssssss.... err, Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeerrrrrrrrr! Sadly, there was no time or room for tasting samples. =( I got to try two different beers, but that was it. The reason I wanted to go to Brooklyn Brewery in the first place was to try their black chocolate stout from the tap. Really, if all else failed, but I still got my draft chocolate stout, then it was a great day. To my dismay, as we creeped forward in line to get our beer, I realized they did not have the chocolate stout listed at all. After asking, they said they could open a bottle of the choco-brew for me. Though I was really looking forward to a draft, I was delighted to have it at all! I didn't even take a sip until I was on the other, less headache inducing side of the building where I could stand elbow to elbow with the other quiet-seekers and enjoy it.

I had a draft of this decadence at Pearly Bakers in Easton, PA a few weeks prior the tour, and was amazed at the flavor complexities. The smell was definitely chocolaty with hints of vanilla. The front of the taste was not overly bitter or sweet. It was not chalky. It walked the fence between dessert and beer without falling into either one. It was something I imagined would be sampled in the Willy Wonka Chocolate Factory for adults. It was a bit creamy, but not too heavy - almost similar to a Guinness. The back half of the taste is my favorite part. It's literally like you just took a bite out of a chocolate bar. I did a double take, or a double sip, and my taste buds were telling the truth. This was truly divine. Unlike many other chocolate stouts, and despite the name "black chocolate stout", the chocolate quality was not too dark (I don't like really dark chocolate). After just one pint, it was my absolute favorite stout ever.

Unfortunately, after my second taste at the chocolate stout mecca, I began to question my previous evaluation of it's heavenly status. There was no balance, and it was a bit too chocolaty. I don't know. Things were just different between us, and I wondered if it would ever be the same again. I chalked the whole experience up to a bad bottle. These things do happen. It's always good to try a beer twice (or three times) to rule out the possibility of such an unfortunate occasion. *sigh*

I also tried BLAST!, their year-round, double, imperial IPA. They state on their site that this beer is "ludicrously hoppy", so you would think I would hate it. But it's really not that bad. The 9.0% ABV along with the tropical fruitiness on the front of the palate is a nice touch, but it's the back of the taste that rears it's ugly, hoppy head with every sip. I half love and half hate this beer, but it's good enough to enjoy a pint every now and then.

This particular visit to Brooklyn Brewery really left me wanting. I didn't have the experience or the balanced, chocolaty beer I so desired, and I didn't get to sample their other offerings. But I can't blame the brewery for it's popularity. Good beer is good beer! A less crowded experience would have proven much more satisfying. Again, the biggest plus for the whole event was the tour guide. He really saved the day. Oh, and the kitty. She was perfect!

If you ever decide to go here for a tour or even just a pint, I highly recommend calling ahead to avoid the lines and giant clusterfluffle that I endured. It's a nice place, the beer is good, and the staff is very knowledgeable/friendly/funny as hell. But no one likes to spend their free time waiting while there is so much beer to be had!

Tour wisely, my friends!


Next Up: Yuengling Brewery - Pottsville, PA

Tour of the Tours - Brewery Tours!

I love touring breweries. I think the whole process is fascinating. The stories behind the businesses and the buildings that hold them are super interesting, and the free beer at the end is not only the cherry on top, but also the three scoops of ice cream beneath it.

So come along with me as I tell tales of frothy glory and demystify the workings of six different breweries I've visited over the past few months.
They are...

• Yuengling - Pottsville, PA
• Harpoon - Boston, MA
• Sam Adams - Boston, MA
• River Horse - Lambertville, NJ
• Weyerbacher - Easton, PA
• Brooklyn - Brooklyn, NY

Their stories will be told over six different installments, and in no specific order.
I will judge them on three subjects:

• Brewery Atmosphere - general feel of the brewery, brewery location

• Tour Guide / Presentation - effectiveness/likeability/entertainment value of the tour guide, layout and execution of the tour

• Beer - self explanatory

Before I delve into the suds, let me first tell you about my personal taste. I'll start by saying I am not crazy about very hoppy beer. I don't like IPA's. I think that sort of hop flavor makes the brew unbalanced, as it dominates all other flavors in the beer. I enjoy variety as opposed to being faithful to one beer (I'm kind of lying... I like yuengling lager). Belgian beer is my favorite, particularly sour beer. The absolute best sour beer I've ever had was at Brugge Brasserie in Broad Ripple, IN. This place also happens to be my favorite restaurant ever, but that's another blog. I enjoy fruity beer, so long as it's refreshing and not overpowering (prefect example is McMenamin's raspberry ale, Ruby). I love trying unusual flavors like Rogue's Maple Bacon Donut or Wells Banana Bread. Oatmeal/milk/chocolate stouts are delicious. Lambic's are tasty, though not very beer-like.
I think you get the idea.

Tour of the Tours - Installment One

Harpoon Brewery - Boston, MA

Harpoon Brewery, my most recent visit, lies on the east side of Boston, right next to the ocean. The atmosphere of this place is bright and decorated. Aside from the wall of very old and rare beer cans, this single beer tasting/merch room has large windows on 3 of the 4 walls. It seems they went through an extensive list of possible business merchandise items ever, slapped their logo on every single one, and put it up for sale. This list ranges from hoodies to snowboards to growler koozies. The overall feel was exciting, though a bit commercialized. The room was small, but not cramped. I liked it.

Brewery tours were $5, and included a tasting glass to take home + beer samples (and of course, the tour!). Our tour was lead by two female tour guides, one of which was one of the dullest I've seen, and the other, one of the best. The better of the two was snarky and cracked some pretty funny jokes. She was a go-getter, and knew every answer to our questions. The other was a bit shy and lacked confidence. She knew the material, but simply wasn't a people-person. The two guides tag-teamed the tour by trading presentations back and forth while we walked through the warehouse, eliminating the time it normally took for a guide to push through the crowed and walk to the next destination on the tour. It was the smoothest presentation of all the breweries I've toured. And also, it was the only tour I've taken where they gave us beer samples throughout, and let us sample from the fermentation tank. The time spent actually touring before returning to the tasting room was about 15-20 short, but information packed minutes. Aside from the one lame guide, the tour was flawless and well thought out.

Ohhhh the beer. At the end of the tour, they brought us back to the tasting room and allowed us to have as many samples as we could wash down in the 15 minutes before the next tour. Needless to say, it ended the like this:

Anyway, they had about 12 beers on tap. Harpoon's pride and joy is their IPA, which you know I hate. But luckily, they offered many other, more tasteful choices to imbibe. I particularly enjoy their series of beer known as UFO (UnFiltered Offerings), in which "the unfiltered yeast remains in suspension, giving this style its signature cloudy color and a soft mouthfeel" (yeah, I stole that from their site). I thought the UFO Raspberry was pretty yummy. But their chocolate stout needed some work. It was definitely chocolate, but it was chalky, overly sweet, and just not something I would ever want. Don't worry chocolate stout lovers, you'll learn about a better offering down the road of this here tour of the tours. The best part, aside from the unlimited beer during a limited time, was the price of the beer. 6 packs were about $6-$7, pretty good right? Well 64 oz. growlers filled with beer were only $9.49, and that includes the price of the growler! ONLY NINE DOLLARS AND FORTY-NINE CENTS!! That means if I work at my job for an hour, I could get a full growler of beer and still have money left for some muchies! It's such a shame I don't live closer, or I would have taken them up on this steal. Really though, if we bought it, Arlo would have only wanted a sip, and I would have ended up drinking the remaining 62 ounces by myself to avoid wasting it. I didn't want to spend my last night in Boston with my face over a toilet. All in all, the variety that Harpoon has to offer is wide enough for any palate (they even have their own hard cider), and it's sold at an unbeatable price. It's really a winning situation. Some may complain that they charge $5 for their tour while other breweries offer tours for free, but it's totally worth your lunch money. If you insist on being so stingy, skip the tour and pick up a growler! This place is a must-visit if you're ever in Boston. It was an afternoon well spent!


Next Up: Brooklyn Brewery - Brooklyn, NY

Basement Music

As an adventurous young child, it was my mission to explore every inch of my house, from the kitchen cupboards to the bathroom closet to the dank basement. All of it had to be discovered.

"Don't go near the stairs." is what my parents used to tell me. Even as a little girl, I understood they told me this because they didn't want me to fall down them. But I would still sit on the top stair, peering down as best I could and listening to my mom doing the laundry. I don't know why it was fascinating at the time. I think the fact that it was dark and cool made it seem inviting. The fact that I was doing what I wasn't supposed to added to the allure. On summer days, the cool air would wisp past my face with hints of fresh linen and good laundry smells. It just felt like the place to be.

It reminds me of how my corgi loves to lay in the doorway between the kitchen and the front room. It's like she doesn't want to miss anything. She wants to make sure that if there's something going on, she's part of it. There's something about being in a central area between two or more commonplaces that makes you feel informed and involved. I think that's why people like living in cities... but my city was the place between the basement and the rest of the house.

Though the top of the basement stairs at my house was a favorite, the most intriguing place was my grandparent's basement, or at least the top of the stairs leading to it. It was absolutely off limits with or without adult supervision, and it was full of interesting, old stuff. My grandfather was very fond of electronics, and also a bit of a pack rat. He was always tinkering and giving my parents the best tips on how to extend battery life. He rigged the basement lights and radio to turn on together with the flip of a switch. I always knew when someone was down there because I could hear the music from almost anywhere in the house. But the music that came from the basement radio wasn't anything familiar from the 80s or 90s. It was so foreign, I simply dubbed it "basement music". It was much later that I discovered it was swing music from the days of my grandparent's youth, the 1940s.

Now, whenever I hear swing, I think of sitting at the top of the stairs, cool air and fresh scent wafting up, and the woosh-woosh-woosh sound of the washer dancing along with the basement music.

Nothing ever seemed more inviting.

Cat Food & Cookies

As children, we are taught the dos and don'ts of life as we begin to explore the new and interesting world set before us. As soon as we become mobile, the world is our playground. And, unfortunately, playgrounds come with rules.

Do brush your teeth.
Don't touch the hot stove.
Do use your please and thank yous. 
Don't pick your nose.
Do eat your vegetables.
Don't go near the stairs.

And yet, we've probably all done the opposite during our early childhood.
Why?
Insatiable curiosity.

And also because we were lazy, impolite, booger-munching monsters that DID NOT consider plants as food.
We were.

Now we're educated adults that understand veggies carry helpful vitamins and boogers are packed with germs. The tangible world has been explored, and we've learned meow mix actually doesn't taste that great.
Curiosity, in this sense, has been sated.

As a boring adult, I look back and wish to be submerged in a world where everything is new once more.
Don't we all?


I mean, burning my hand on the stove was incredibly painful. But before I seared my skin on those bright orange coils, the possibilities were endless. Perhaps, upon my touch, a pretty rainbow would appear with my little ponies dancing about. Or maybe it would grant me the ability to outsmart my older brother.

Not knowing was absolutely enthralling.


And now that I know, it's not nearly as fun.

It seems our whole lives, we thirst for knowledge.
We learn and experience and dabble.

Perhaps this is the reason for death.
When we know so much, the world becomes disinteresting.
So much knowledge leads to so much logic.
Outcomes become too predictable.
Life around us gets increasingly boring with age.

Wonder is lost.








And yet, in knowing this, or at least thinking I do, I say,

"To Hell With Logic!!!".

Was it logical to get a boyfriend at home right before I moved off to college?
Was it logical to move to Portland, OR for 9 months with pennies in my pocket?
Was it logical to plan a year + trip to Australia instead of finishing college?

I could go on, but the obvious answer is NO!


But these are the best decisions I've made in my life!
Why?
Because meow mix may be gross,
but those cookies in the cookie jar are DELICIOUS!
I wouldn't have known the outcome of any of these things
unless I gave into curiosity.
Logic tells me to stick with what I know, but curiosity tells me to touch the stove, taste the red goop they call ketchup, and move to the other side of the country.

There are so many lovely things in life that I'll never know unless I continue to explore with a child-like curiosity. Yes, I'm going to get burned. Yes, I'm going to be uncomfortably unemployed and homeless. But I'll also meet lifelong friends, sample thrilling flavors and textures, and discover buried treasure. I might even find rainbows with dancing ponies.


Or maybe even the ability to fly...