Brewery visits

[Hoddy]

I've also been to a very small micro brewery in Lyme Regis not a tour just walked in off the street asked a few questions and bought some beer. Perhaps someone on here who is local would recall its name.

Its literally Lyme Regis Brewery. They are also running a crowd funder campaign of pledge a pint to help them get through COVID-19 you can find their page here Pledge-a-Pint @ Lyme Regis Brewery during COVID-19 and help them out.

They are small and have one of those nice 1bbl SS Brew Tech three vessel systems. Expensive, but an awesome pilot piece of kit.

 

[Chippy_Tea]

just walked in off the street asked a few questions and bought some beer.

Are you sure that wasn't a Bargain Booze shop?

 

[JonBrew]

I've done a few, mostly in Scotland.

West Brewery (Glasgow) was really good. Brewery is housed in a famous decommissioned carpet/textile factory. Tour was great and did a tasting session after which was lots of fun and quite boozy. There's also a really nice restaurant. Great place to spend an afternoon, evening or both.

Black Isle Brewery; the Black Isle (just North of Inverness). Very cool little place. We were showing about by one of the founding bothers. The chap was very nice but very reluctant to share much about their processes etc which struck me as a little odd (I was asking quite a bit as I had not long started homebrewing at the time). There's a little shop but no tasting facilities when I was there but they now have a bar in Inverness.

Camden Town Brewery (London). That was good fun. Were down for my 30th birthday trip. Great taproom with outdoor seating. Decent tour with a complimentary tin of their pale ale for the walk round which was nice.

Brooklyn Brewery (New York). By far the best I've done. The guy who took it was fantastic. One of the busiest tours I've been on though which makes asking questions harder. Great tap room too and your ticket price was returned to you in lots of beer.

Tennents (Glasgow). Although more in the macro realm it was actually pretty decent. More interesting from an almost manufacturing point of view. At the end of the tour you get to taste an unfiltered and unpasteurised version of Tennents Lager - it's only available their and at their neighbour Drygate and is actually a pretty decent lager.

 

[Moe]

Been to the Stella brewery in Leuven. That’s really good, you get to see the beer brewed on an industrial process. Best bit is afterwards they drop you off in the bar and gift shop and you can drink all the Stella you like

Black Sheep is really good, they have a nice bar and a good selection of beers on draft and in bottles. You get 3 1/3rd pint beers to try at the end.

Also been to Whychwood brewery. I was really surprised at how small this is (considering you can get Hobgoblin all over the UK). Had an excellent tour there the guy was very knowledgeable and you get to see all of the kit up close. No bar though, you get to sample some bottles at the end and get a free branded half glass.

 

[JohnALt20]

I’ve only been to my local ones - 71 Brewing in Dundee and Eden Mill just outside St Andrews.

My dad got a couple of free tours for Mor Brewing on the outskirts of Dundee (about 200yards from my parents old house but about 2 miles from where they live now) for buying a 24 pack from them over lockdown and he said he’ll take me with him so I have that to look forward to in the coming months.

My son also went to nursery with the son of one of the directors of Redcastle Brewery between Carnoustie and Arbroath and I was told I could be shown around at a birthday party just before lockdown. It’s been so long now and the boys are at different schools that I don’t like to ask now.

I had some 71 brewings offerings from Lidl and I have to say I was really impressed

 

[MickDundee]

I had some 71 brewings offerings from Lidl and I have to say I was really impressed

They’ve upped their game over the last 18 months or so. The core range they had when they first opened was pretty dull (Pilsner, Dunkel and a Porter), but only their Dundonian Pilsner remains from the launch beers and they’ve moved much more into the craft beer market and these beers are very good.

 

[Mavroz]

Well, i might start selling tickets for open days at mine then.
Nowt much to see really, some buckets, a fridge and some bags of grain + hops, you can meet the brew collie(s) moods depending!
Say £35 a ticket, you will get to clean out some trub from buckets, empty spent grains from the mash tun (s) and peel labels from recycled bottles all part of the brewery experience, if you wish to.
If it is a fair day, you may even get to take part in cleaning of the brew garage and outhouse windows, again all part of the experience.
Will chuck in a couple of bottles of whatever i can find in the cellar for each customer to take away also. Stocks are limited....
Whole experience will last about 30 to 90 minutes max, depending on what chores need to be carried out and amount of visitors.
Sound good? Watch out for tickets going on sale folks, first come first serve basis!

 

[Sadfield]

I think there isn't much to learn from most brewery tours, as they are normally run as another revenue stream when they aren't brewing a beer that day, unless it's a really big brewery, which is then normally an automated process. Looking for breweries that do brew day experiences, or just asking your local if you can help out one day would be a better route to go down. @JohnALt20 could try Beer Nouveau in Manchester, he's pretty homebrew friendly or Wincle Brewery just outside of Macclesfield do Brewday Experiences (although not currently under covid). Get in there and picking the brewer's brain as you work is where all the useful info is. Mostly, learning how to clean things properly, because something looking clean and shiney doesn't mean it is.

 

[Haroldo Teixeira]

If you want to go out of England in other opportunities, I strongly suggest Des Halve Maan in Bruges, Cantillon in Brussels (both in Belgium), Heineken at Amsterdam and La Trappe in Tilburg (both in Netherlands). And here at Brazil, Bohemia at Petropolis, a city about 1 hour from Rio de Janeiro.

 

[terrym]

Thumbs up for the tour at the Black Sheep Brewery I did two or three years back, but not available at present.
When things get back to normal and if you were organised you could also get to go to Theakstons which is just round the corner. But get a driver to be with you.

 

[Obadiah Boondoggle]

Until recently I used to be a tour guide at Robinsons Brewery in Stockport and conducted hundreds of people around the brewery over the 2.5 years I worked there

Usually great fun but there was the odd stupid question e.g. "Do the hops from America come by boat or plane?" and (when talking about malted barley) "Is that where Robinsons Barley Water comes from?"

They are not currently running (for obvious reasons) but as it is an old brewery there is lot's about the history of the place. It was totally modernised about 10 years ago but most of the old brewing kit has been left in place (used from 1880 upto ~2012). This means you can see very modern brewing process right next to old traditional ones

 

[Clint]

I like the sound of hosting a home,homebrew tour!
I'm not receiving visitors at the moment due to getting a bit wise to that malarkey so I might just invite myself.
Plus I'm less likely to get bitten by the jack Russell...

 

[MonkeyMick]

I've done the Black Isle brewery a few years ago and did the Meantime tour in Greenwich just before lockdown.

Highly recommend both, and got smashed on the Meantime one as the beer flowed copiously as they showed their different styles!

 

[Flat Foot]

Sorry for the zombie thread resurrection, but was wondering whether to do another tour for my birthday next year like I did at Wadworth a few years back, so searched the forum in case there was some good tips.

Wadworth was an enjoyable one, the room where they did the mashing and sparging looked relatively modern, but the room they did the fermenting in looked like the back room with oversized fermenting buckets. As it's the old brewery building lots of uneven steps, pipes every where etc. It goes against what you often have in your head of what large scale beverage manufacturing would be like.

And as interesting as the tour was the stables over the road where they keep their shire horses and the workshop where they paint the pub signs.

Up in Scotland I've toured Glengoyne Distillery, very interesting and a beautiful setting.

 

[Irishwizard]

Sorry for the zombie thread resurrection, but was wondering whether to do another tour for my birthday next year like I did at Wadworth a few years back, so searched the forum in case there was some good tips.

Wadworth was an enjoyable one, the room where they did the mashing and sparging looked relatively modern, but the room they did the fermenting in looked like the back room with oversized fermenting buckets. As it's the old brewery building lots of uneven steps, pipes every where etc. It goes against what you often have in your head of what large scale beverage manufacturing would be like.

And as interesting as the tour was the stables over the road where they keep their shire horses and the workshop where they paint the pub signs.

Up in Scotland I've toured Glengoyne Distillery, very interesting and a beautiful setting.

...and some guy always mentions - "The Angels Share" - its what they dont tell you is more important, like the addition of colourants and filtering. Strangely this is never mentioned. A lot of the Whiskey industry is one big con - Dont get get me wrong, I do like a drop!

 

[Clint]

I shall be visiting Brew York a week on Sunday. No planning on a tour but I more than likely be trying some of their offerings.

 

[Cheshire Cat]

Are you sure that wasn't a Bargain Booze shop?

No it was the Lyme Regis Brewing Company.

 

[Bombers hoppy ending]

Did the black sheep tour about 15years ago and also the Guinness tours.
Black sheep was great tour. Guinness was a little like the beer equivalent of Cadbury world.

 

[Tanglefoot]

Stopped off at the Hook Norton brewery as I was working nearby and had always wanted to see it.
It's a huge, impressive building down a little lane in a village.
I got a selection of bottles from the well stocked shop, their minipins were a bargain.
Not sure if they do a tour but I'd love to see inside.

 

[Edison]

Stopped off at the Hook Norton brewery as I was working nearby and had always wanted to see it.
It's a huge, impressive building down a little lane in a village.
I got a selection of bottles from the well stocked shop, their minipins were a bargain.
Not sure if they do a tour but I'd love to see inside.

Yep, they do a good tour, they have some interesting history, you get to meet the dray horses and the tour ends up in the cellar bar where you can pour and drink as much as you can manage from around 10 beers in the last 45 minutes!