Samuel Adams Brewery Tour

I expected to be blogging about our exciting trip to the Boston Samuel Adams Brewery – we were not impressed. The brewery is actually a Research and Development facility the actual brewing is done in Pennsylvania and Ohio. The tour lasted one hour – most of which was spent in the tasting room drinking three 7 ounce samples of Sam Adams beer; it made for an interesting breakfast since it was 11 o’clock and I had not had breakfast and Phil only had a bowl of cereal!!

Our first stop was a small room where we learned about the roasted malt our tour guide gave us samples to nibble on we tasted a pale barley and chocolate roasted barley. They were sweet and nutty the chocolate one had a faint coco taste. We learned about the Hops that Sam Adams uses it is grown in Germany and they use the whole hop as well as pellets. They passed the hops around and we were able to smell that wonderful hop aroma.

Our next stop was a room where we were lectured on the brewing process and saw the copper pots where they boil the malt mixture, the mixture now called wort is then sent to the wort chillers then to the finishing tanks. That was it. We then went to the tasting room!

We never got to smell the wonderful smells of boiling malt, simmering hops, fermented beer being racked to go to the next stage, no clanging of bottles being filled with the malty goodness of beer. How sad that we had expected to see a brewery – after all it is called the Boston Brewing Company – so why is it brewed in Pennsylvania and Ohio? Silly us!!

We did get to sample three beers, Boston Larger, Summer Wheat and one that will be on the market in the next few weeks Summer Lemon Wheat. Lesson learned next time we want to tour a brewery ask if they actually brew and bottle beer!!!

To see the photo album click on the photo below

Sam Adams 7.20.09