Flew into Milwaukee last week, was driving thru town and saw a great billboard which read,
"Can you beleive some cities do not have a brewery tour?"
I don't frequent this newsgroup, but just wanted to share that billboard with someone. Wish I'd had my camera.
Well, Yuengling used to have the most casual brewery tour, back in the pre-micro days (that'd be back before they were the 6th largest US brewer!). A secretary took just me and my girl friend around; when we got to the bottling line, she offered to let me take a beer off the line before the pasteurizer, so I walked around with a cold 16 oz. deposit bottle of Yuengling beer the rest of the tour.
When we got back to the office area and she said, "Oh, there's Dick now..." and we looked up to see Dick Yuengling, still in his overcoat, with a small glass of beer in his hand. Chatted awhile with him and we went for some drafts in the hospitality room. We asked for a reccomendation for lunch at a place with Chesterfield Ale on tap. They thought about it for awhile and said, "The Firehouse". Got directions and started looking for a restaurant called "The Firehouse". Turns out it was a real local fire station, that served lunch in basement and had Yuengling beers on tap...
True, but there is only so much a large brewery can do. And there is something about those old breweries in Milwaukee, like Pabst BR that just are cool to visit - maybe for only historical reasons.
I'd never drink anything that came from Old Milwaukee or Pabst, (mainly drink Fullers ESB now that I can get it locally), but still neat to do the tours.
The Washington metro area has one, in at the Old Dominion Brewery in Ashburn, Virginia. When we took the tour, the owner was our guide. You also get three free glasses of beer during the process.
See
Dav Vandenbroucke dav_and_frances snipped-for-privacy@compuserve.com
I think it is thanks to that brewer that many cities don't have brewery tours....
_Randal
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