Beer Traveling in Tourist Class

Great beer is always something to look forward to. But much of the fun of Beer Traveling is discovering new places. A brewery tour is a pleasant way to do both. It's a thirst-quenching way to spend an hour or two while learning about the brewery's history. You get a close-up look at the wonders of manufacturing, and sometimes a lesson in politics or economics as well.

Behind every brewery is an interesting story and there's always someone eager to tell it. So the next time you're on the road, consider adding a brewery tour to your "to do" list when you visit a city.

One of our most memorable tours was at the Young's Ram Brewery in London. At the time of our visit, it was the oldest brewery in England that continually brewed at the same site. Sadly, Young's has since closed its doors, although its beer is still being brewed elsewhere under contract. One of the most striking things about Young's was how the brewery was tucked in among houses and stores. It was a working part of the neighborhood.

Before embarking on our tour, the guide issued everyone a white lab coat and hat. Cleanliness? Safety? Maryanne finally concluded that we were just harder to lose sight of that way. But hey, we're cynical.

Part of the tour was a museum filled with old brewing vessels. The museum was destroyed by German bombs during World War II, but restored afterward. One brew kettle was used from 1869 until 1983, another from 1885 until 1997. They were powered by steam, with the water heated by coal. The false bottom from the mash tun has been preserved in the floor. Fermentation tanks dating back to 1882 were still in use, too--was a living history lesson.

After the tour, we spent our tour beer tokens in the on-site pub and talked with the locals who had stopped in for a late lunch of traditional pub grub. One of the staff told us an interesting fact: almost all of the Americans who went on the tour were homebrewers.

Touring the Dutch Giant

Spontaneous isn't exactly our middle name, but our visit to the Heineken Experience a few years back certainly was impromptu. When a canceled flight made a long layover in Amsterdam longer still, we had to take action. So we stowed our carry-on luggage in a locker and hopped the train into town.

The "Experience," at the site of the old brewery, educates visitors about Heineken while entertaining them, and at the end, deposits them in what we call the "pro shop," an area filled with souvenirs to take home. You get a few beers along the way, of course. Visitors are cleverly encouraged to keep moving along the self-guided tour route by the promise of beer samples at three tasting stations.

You enter by passing the lab of Doctor Elion, a student of Louis Pasteur, who in the late 19th century developed the Heineken yeast strain. You can watch him labor over a microscope. The poor fellow looked miserable. No wonder: he didn't have a glass of beer handy.

The old brewhouse itself is beautiful. Copper brewing tanks stand out against the white-tiled walls. The vessels have been cut open and fitted with video monitors that describe the brewing process. Outside the windows, you can see the Heineken family's old mansion across the canal; it's now used as corporate headquarters. Look out the other side, and there are the stables of Shire horses that still walk the streets of Amsterdam every day pulling an old delivery wagon.

Several entertainment stations along the way enhance the experience. They include a bottling line animation, a place to send video postcards to friends back home, and even a movie theater where you're made to feel like you're in the driver's seat of a horse-drawn wagon as it makes the rounds.
Generations at Utica

Back over on our side of the big pond, Utica, New York, is the home fo the Saranac Brewery and a complex where beer has been brewed since 1853. In 1888, F.X. Matt, who began his career at the famous Duke of Baden Brewery in Germany's Black Forest before emigrating, took over the brewery and reorganized it as the West End Brewing Company and later, the Matt Brewing Company.

Nowadays, the third and fourth generations of Matts brew beer to their grandfather's standards at one of America's few remaining regional breweries. The company survived Prohibition by switching to a line of soft drinks, known for many years as Utica Club. (Later, the name "Utica Club" was given to Matt's most affordably-priced beer.) Customers can still buy root beer, orange cream, and other Saranac soft drinks.

The current seven-story brewhouse, built after World War II, is home to two huge copper brew kettles that are original equipment. Visitors can also admire the Matt family's antique collection, which includes a million-dollar grandfather clock and a desk that once belonged to P.T. Barnum. There's a display of bottles used by the Matt brewery over the years, going back to clear glass bottles from the 19th century. Ever wonder what a Prohibition-era speakeasy looked like? The Saranac folks will show you one.

The tour ends with a short motorized trolley ride to the 1888 Tavern. It's decorated in Victorian fashion, complete with a player piano. There we enjoyed a couple of beers on the house, after which our guides ushered us back into the 21st century.

The Original Cult Beer

As college students, we had roommates whose friends and family shipped them cases of Coors to the Midwest. Or, should we say, smuggled them. Back in those days you couldn't buy it east of the Mississippi. In fact, there were rumors that President Ford brought cases back to Washington aboard Air Force One–over the objection of Coors executives.

At any rate, we had to visit the Coors brewery in Golden when we were in Colorado for the Great American Beer Festival. The brewery is, after all, the world's largest on a single site. Along with that distinction comes quite a tour and public-relations operation. Visitors begin by parking in downtown Golden and taking a special Coors shuttle bus to the plant.

The public lobby is filled with memorabilia, including posters of old labels and the marketing campaigns of the past, as well as several displays that will surely bring a smile to your face. One of our favorites was dedicated to the movie "Smokey and the Bandit." In it, a modern-day moonshiner played by Burt Reynolds is hired by a big-shot politician to haul a truckload of Coors from Texarkana to Atlanta back in the days when it couldn't be transported legally to Georgia.

On the tour itself, you get a good feel for the enormous size of the brewery complex. Let's just say that it's a tad larger than your average family-run business. But the facility is so modern that you almost forget that Coors started brewing here in 1873. With all the automation, we wondered if the staff could disappear for days at a time without the plant skipping a beat–except maybe for the tours, of course–or losing a drop of beer.

Will you come away from the tour with all of the secrets of that "Mile High Taste"? Of course not, but you'll find out why they use mountain water, how they cold-filter the beer, and everything you'll ever want to know about transporting it. And of course, you get the chance to sample Coors at its best in the company of your fellow beer travelers. That's always the best part.

And now, as the Bandit would say, "Ten-four."

All About Beer, vol. 28, no. 4, September 2007.