Samuel Adams Brewery, Boston

I recently returned from a trip to the East Coast. We went to Niagara Falls, Boston, Salem, Marblehead, Mystic, Philadelphia, and Hershey. I'll be posting some of the shots taken on this trip in the near future.


I'll begin with one of our favorite destinations: The Boston Brewing Company, home of Samuel Adams. Contact info: The Samuel Adams Brewery 30 Germania Street Boston (Jamaica Plain neighborhood), MA 02130 For hours, directions, special events and closings, please call (617) 368-5080


We were going on a Saturday morning, so we knew we should go early. We arrived for the first tour of the day at 10:00. The first half of the tour consisted of being shown the large tanks in which they brew some of their fine beer.

It was very informative, and I found myself zoning out a bit when they started getting into the "to kreusen or not to kreusen" discussion, but then came the "sniff and taste" portion where our brave guide passed around the barley and hops for us to smell and taste. Here you see my wife tempting Michael with some barley goodness. Unfortunately for Michael, he tried some and it didn't agree with him :(

But, all was fine and happy as our cheery and knowledgeable guide answered all of our questions, then took us out to the outdoor tasting area.

Once outside, we were instructed on the proper steps for tasting and evaluating beer. The first step is to hold up your glass and look how the light passes through the beer, looking for discoloration or foreign matter. Next, cup your hand over the top and smell the beer. Lastly, taste the beer, holding it in your mouth for a moment and letting it roll around and then swallowing it.

We happened to be seated at a table across from four fine young folks who were just as eager as Janice and I were to put our tasting skills to the test. We started with a pitcher of Boston Lager. A great way to start!

We honed our craft and finished this pitcher off.



We were then informed that we would be sampling two newly developed beers that will be taste-tested by lots of folks and whichever one comes out as the winner in the trials will actually be put into production. The really cool thing was that we were the first group to undertake this all important mission of evaluating these brews.

First came the Blackberry Stout. It was full-bodied, with an aroma and taste of sweet blackberrys and a fine finish. Yummy!


Here you see our friends, Mary Angela, Ryan O'Connell, A.J. Rios, and Eric Hall enjoying the Blackberry Stout.

Janice had fun telling our daughter to watch out for boys like Ryan when she got to college. He was always ready with the pitcher to make sure the glasses were kept full. Janice said he reminded her of me when I was that age!

Our third pitcher of beer was Coffee Stout. It was definitely an eclectic beer. It started off tasting like cold coffee, then after you swallowed it, it tasted like stout. Weird. It was no one's favorite. We tried to convince our hosts that we needed to taste another pitcher of Blackberry Stout to make our decision, but to no avail.

We were then given ballots and we all voted for the Blackberry goodness.

The good folks at Sam Adams then gave us each a nice tasting glass with the Samuel Adams logo on it and we set off to the gift shop. This was a very fine way to start the day! UPDATE: My dad is a draftsman who's worked designing tanks for lots of different applications over the years. I got this note tonight: When I saw the pics, I knew the building and the tanks. I drew most of the tanks. I did a full workup of the floor plan to figure out where to place the tanks to best utilize the floor plan. Glad you liked it.

OUR HERO! :)