The tours happen Tuesday, Thursday and Saturday. Saturdays must be scheduled in advance, so this has been on the docket for quite some time. We lobbied for carpools so we managed to make it there in four cars. It would have been really nice if someone had a van, but somehow, none of us have gotten to that point in our lives where a van has seemed like a rational purchase.
Upon arrival at the brewery we needed to prove our age (21+, and that's all I'll admit to) and receive our wooden beer tokens. Then it was a waiting game with seductive glimpses of the brew kettles in the room to our right.
Once the "tour" started, we were given a breif overview of the brewery's history, some statisics about how much beer they make--approximately 83 thousand barrels a year--and how many states they distribute to--15--and things like that. Then we moved on to the REALLY fun part, the actual tour.
It can start in one of two ways, ours started in the kettle room, where they make the wurt in giant copper kettles rescued from a defunct brewery in Germany. The entire brew process is controlled by a wall of fancy electronics, but they didn't get into too much detail about that.
After the kettle room we went into the fermentation hall, where there are beautiful stainless steel (or aluminum, I couldn't tell) tanks for storing the beer while it ferments. The process can take anywhere from 2-8 weeks depending on the kind of beer they are making. As the beer ferments it creates carbon dioxide that is partially captured to carbonate the bottled and kegged beers that they sell, so next time you're drinking a Summit, remember that that CO2 is the product of the fermentation process, because how cool is that? Very. I wish I could post the smell of the fermentation hall for you here, because wow it just smelled incredible. If you've ever made bread, its sort of like that, but with more grain smells, and hops. . .ok so it's nothing like that.
The bottling line is new from the last time I was there, much shinier, and the stacks of bottles seemed much more impressive next to it.
After the walk through the kegging line and the cooler we headed out to the bar to sample what was on tap, which is pretty much everything that is available retail at the moment. . . yum. Beer is good food.
