We nibbled on malted barley kilned to varying degrees of darkness, and rubbed whole cone hops between our palms. The tour itself had all of the elements one expects from a tour that serves thousands of people every week. It’s worth looking for this one when it finally matures. At 18% abv Triple Bock was the precursor to Utopias, and Sam Adams first foray into extreme beers. Given that mission it wasn’t a surprise to see hundreds of oak barrels and a couple of foeders in the back rooms of the brewery. As the tour went on I learned that they only produce enough beer at this facility to serve local accounts, experiment with new recipes, make their barrel aged line of beers (Stony Brook Red, Tetravis Quad, American Kriek, …), and the specialty high gravity beers like Utopias. The brewing capacity seemed to be roughly on par with one of the mid-size Columbus-area breweries, say someplace like Elevator Brewing. Even though I knew this was not their main production facility I was still surprised at the small size of the brewery. has won gold medals at the GABF as recently as 2014, and Indiana are defending Big 10 champions, but past glories are palpable at both places). The effect is reminiscent of Assembly Hall, where Big Ten and NCAA championship banners hearken back to the glory days of the Bobby Knight era (to be fair Boston Beer Co. ![]() In the area where the tour group congregates banners hang from the rafters proclaiming awards won in the beer festivals of yesteryear. ![]() Boston Beer Company GABF awards stretch from Boston Lager being chosen as the Best Beer in America in 1985 to gold medals for Tetravis and Double Bock in 2104. We just barely squeezed onto the 3 pm tour, along with 90+ like-minded souls. Apparently we weren’t the only ones who thought a free brewery tour might be a good way to spend a sweltering Friday afternoon. As we were making the five-minute walk from the metro stop to the brewery it became clear that most of the people who detrained at Stony Brook had the same destination in mind. To get there we jumped on the T and took the orange line to the Stony Brook stop. A tour of the Boston Beer Company, aka Sam Adams (30 Germania St, Boston), seemed like a good place to start. I know what some of you are thinking, “I wonder if my wife would go for that?” While I can’t answer that question for you, hopefully this recap of our adventures can be a useful guide to your next beer outing in Beantown.Īfter checking into our hotel, the compact but upscale Club Quarters Hotel (161 Devonshire St, Boston), we were ready to get an early start to our kid-free, work-free, weekend celebration of love and beer. After all what’s more romantic than excursions to out of the way industrial parks in parts of the city with absolutely no connection to colonial American history? What could be more seductive than the environs of a glorified warehouse sans air conditioning on a hot, humid summer evening? What better way to rekindle the spark of new love than dreamy conversations over pints of hazy, massively dry hopped IPAs, while sharing a communal wooden table with bearded men? ![]() A weekend getaway in a cosmopolitan, historic city seemed like a great way to celebrate our wedding anniversary. Recently I spent two days in Boston with my amazing, adventurous wife, Laurinda.
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