![]() When you are done, you emerge back into the beer hall where you will probably order another round. You get to sample as many beers as you wish within the time you are in there, which is around 15 to 20 minutes. In the middle of the tour, you hit the tasting room. On the weekend, they don't run the bottling machines, so we missed that operation. The tour guides are educated and make the tour fun. They take you through the brewery with stops and explanations along the way. Once on the tour, you go into a room where they get you organized, issue safety glasses and give you a sampler glass of beer which you take with you. We elbowed our way to the bar and ordered an IPA flight while we waited on the tour. But, with our purchased tour tickets, we were allowed to go on in. When we returned for our 4:45 PM tour, there was a line to get into the building. Note - beer is not FREE in the beer hall. Even at 11, there was already a line for brewery tour tickets ($5) and people were already ordering beer and hanging in the beer hall. We got to the brewery around 11AM on a Saturday (as suggested on the website) to buy tour tickets for later in the day. What you have is one really long bar with every Harpoon beer available, long tables and people. Full glass for outside views and glass views of part of the brewery. You walk to the building and go upstairs and emerge in their large, European style beer hall that is very open and airy. The location is on the water in a commercial/industrial area. It's a short walk to/from several of the stops to the brewery. We took the Silver line on the T to get there. This place is wildly popular on the weekends, you are not going to be able to just walk in and expect to tour. I highly recommend reading the web site and heed their advise regarding a visit and brewery tour. If you don't like real beer, don't bother (although the pretzels are REALLY good) I like harpoon beers, so for me the tour is a 'must visit' for Boston. After that, it was back to the bar, and shop for merchandise. Next stop the bottling plant, and more technical details of the lengths they go to keep the beer at its best. The group coming behind us drove us out, but it didn't feel as though we were being rushed (not sure how long we are on their, but it could easily have been 20mins). If we didn't get to try everything, it was our own fault. Our guide gave us a brief and entertaining description of each of the beers (for us, if memory serves, it was Rye IPA, IPA, Harpoon Ale, Summer Ale, White IPA, Black IPA, UFO White, UFO Raspberry, Stout, Directors Cut, and Harpoon Cider) and then it was up to us to decide what we wanted to try. The tasting room is a relatively small bar with taps for whatever is available on the day. The good news is that the beer is still excellent, as the next stop on the tour demonstrated. What you see is a lot of stainless steel and a small control room where the computer that controls it all lives. Harpoon is no longer a small craft brewery, but has grown to small industrial scale. If you've been to a brewery before, there is nothing new here. Although there were probably 30 of us in the group, his commentary was clear, aided with a mike. The tour itself started with a sample of IPA, and then our tour guide took us into the brewery. ![]() It was freshly baked, the dipping sauces freshly prepared, and delicious. If you visit, you might not think to try the pretzels, but think again. The beer was excellent, but that was to be expected. We filled the time with a beer each, and a pretzel to share. I enjoyed the Samuel Adams brewery much, much more- free tour, bigger portioned samples, much better beer and a free tasting glass.We arrived at about 3:30 on a Monday, for the 4pm tasting to discover that this was the first day of their new regime of running tours during the week, so we put our name down. I would probably not go back if I was in Boston again. The tour was good- it was an hour long and the tasting was generous, but you don't even get a glass to take home after you pay $5 for the tour (I've never been on a tour that you had to pay where you don't get to keep your tasting glass). They have a lot of fruity beers and many IPA's, neither of which I like and although my husband likes IPA's, most of them were just ok and nothing special. Some of their beer is good but most is just ok. We decided to get a flight and the worst part is that you can't choose what beers you want in the flight- they have designated flight options. So while we waited, we visited the tasting room which was packed and very noisy. We visited on a Sunday afternoon and had to wait 2 hours for the next tour (disappointing they don't run more often like Sam Adams which runs every 20 mins or so). ![]()
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