A few buddies and I picked up a Groupon for a local micro-brewery tour and took the tour on Saturday. This is our second one and they are a lot of fun! This time we found one for Mantra Brewing that included a sampling of three beers and then a pint right before the tour.
They brew A LOT of different beers here. When we got there they had about 28 on tap of all different type and styles. They do have only a few you can get canned or bottled at a local store, but the taproom has everything. We all tried to get different types to get some variety. I went with the Amour Rouge, the Japa Milk Stout Chia and a Chocolate Wit. The only one I didn't really like was the Amour Rouge. It was pretty tart and just not my style.
We managed to finish them all and you can see a list of the 28 they have on tap here. Seriously, they have a lot of beer in the taproom.
It is not easy to read but you can see a list of the beers on the screens. That is all 28 and they even show an estimate on how much they have on hand. Most of them are a one time run and once it is gone that is it. The tour guide told us that a few of the popular ones they have made are "mistakes" and they didn't document the entire brewing process and they aren't really able to repeat it again if they wanted.
The best part about going on these brewery tours is the dedication the brewers have to what they are doing. Our guide knew his stuff and had been with the company for over a year brewing daily. They didn't have a huge warehouse and definitely used every section of space they could to get the equipment they needed.
They purchased a used canning machine to start doing their own canning. It was quite impressive.
I had no idea that there is method of aging beer in barrels! They have about 20 barrels total that they are using. He told us a good percentage of them are wine barrels that they got from Arrington Vineyards but they do have a few whiskey ones. It takes a number of months for the beer to complete the process in the barrels and I am honestly not sure all that is involved with that process. He told us that beer aged in barrels is hard to find here and actually quite expensive. They didn't have any at the time and it goes fast once it is ready. Definitely going to have to try some of it once I can find it.
We finished off the night with a bite to eat at McCreary's Irish Pub with a few black and tans and fish and chips. 🍺
If you are looking for a fun thing to do on any given Saturday then I suggest looking up a few local breweries and checking out the tour. We have not had a bad experience yet and the beer is always fresh and different. It puts a nice twist on just heading out to a taproom and sitting at the bar. 🍻
Good post, I love a nice beer from a microbrewery, and luckily there are more and more of them popping up! Interesting about aging beer in barrels too, I know of whiskies that are aged in sherry oak barrels, but hadn't heard of that happening for beer too.
Yeah! I definitely want to give one a try. Apparently it has been around for a long time but is hard to find. It would be interesting to try a barrel age beer next to the same one brewed outside of the barrel.
Good point, it would be interesting to compare barrel and non barrel aged side by side.
What's in those glasses in the last pic? Guinness on top and ....?
Yep. Guinness and Harp Irish Lager.
Haven't seen that before.
It gets you properly wrecked. An alternative is to start with a pint of stout, drink half, add half a pint of bitter and repeat the process 'till you're only drinking bitter. Then, if you're still standing, you go back the other way till it's only the stout in your glass. If you still know which way is up, you're doing brilliantly.
@daynewright I'm curious as to how 'black and tan' came to be associated with St. Patrick's day in America, given the term is a nickname for the special reserve constables of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (also known as the B Specials) - that is part-time policemen for the British when they still ruled Ireland. They were mainly known for being violent and profoundly anti-Catholic, so I think something got lost in translation when the term crossed the Atlantic.
Finally got the joke, black and tans knock you out!
I lived in San Diego for a couple of years, and developed a love of microbrews during my time there. This article makes me want to take a trip to a brewery as soon as possible. I'll probably make a stop at BevMo to see what they have to offer in the meanwhile.
You should!
The process of barrel ageing is pretty simple, put the beer in the (very very clean) barrel and monitor it, after time it should take on flavours of the barrel itself plus what was previously in it (in this instance wine one assumes) - When it tastes good - bottle/tap it.
Thanks! Most of the barrels had a syringe looking thing out of the top. Any idea what that was for? (Not sure if you can see it in the picture)
Wow, looks like a cool place!