Samuel Adams Brewery Tour - Boston

Before leaving the UK, I booked a place on the 'Morning Mash In Tour' at 9.40am on Friday 13 November, using a link from the brewery's website. The tour is free but a suggested donation of $2 to local charities can be made on arrival.

The brewery is situated at 30 Germania Street, within walking distance of Stony Brook and Green Street T (subway) stations on the MBTA Orange Line.

As I was staying in 'The Hedges' Airbnb accommodation near Green Street station in Jamaica Plain, I simply had to walk down Brookside Avenue to reach the brewery, after a leisurely breakfast.

Haffenreffer Brewers site

Once the site of Haffenreffer Brewery, established in 1870 and closed in 1964, Jim Koch set up Boston Brewing Company on the site in 1988. The brand name, Samuel Adams, was adopted from the American patriot and statesman, born in Boston in 1722.

I was one of the first to arrive and we waited for the doors to open in time for the 9.40am tour.

Inside the reception area you will find a cabinet housing some bottles and items to illustrate Boston's Brewing History. A Samuel Adams sign on the wall is made out of bottle caps.

On another wall, a screen displayed details of Samuel Adams beers with a feed from Untappd on the right hand side showing Who's drinking Samuel Adams.

A Boston Brewing Company 'Tasting Tree' print on display used the three main branches on a large tree to represent the malt, yeast and hops influences on beer flavours. Near the base of the tree a fourth branch had words for spices. Words on the river represented the appearance of beer. Each branch on the smaller tree on the left had a word describing Off Flavours. The small tree on the right had branches with words for other beer characteristics like Mouthfeel, Body and Alcohol.

Our guide for the tour was Steve. He started with some ground rules and said 'Feel free to take pictures'. He suggested using hashtag ForTheLoveOfBeer if posting them on social media. The route from the reception area to the brewhouse is through a repurposed tank. Steve led us into a side room for an introductory talk.

He talked us through the history of beer with plenty of amusing anecdotes. Steve then talked about the ingredients for beer and passed three different types of malted barley around for us to taste. Some Cascade hop cones were passed around for us to split apart and roll in our fingers to get aromas of citrus, pine and fresh cut grass. Steve said 'We use Boston tap water'. The water is filtered down and built back up to the composition of 1984 Boston tap water. Now it was time to move into the brewhouse to hear about the brewing process.

In the large area of the brewhouse, Steve's voice had to compete with some brewery noises and for anyone at the back of the group it was sometimes difficult to hear what he was saying.

The Jamaica Plain brewhouse, shown in these photos, is now used for brewing specialist Sam Adams beers. However, my research shows that the largest quantities of Samuel Adams beers are now brewed in two larger breweries. Jim Koch was born in Cincinnati, Ohio and in 1997 the Hudepohl-Schoenling Brewery in Cincinnati was purchased. In 2008, the former F&M Schaefer brewery in Breinigsville (Lehigh Valley, Pennsylvania) was purchased from Diageo.

After his brewhouse talk, Steve asked if the tour group would like to try three fresh award winning Sam Adams beers. This was greeted by a loud cheer of 'Yeah' but an even louder cheer was needed before Steve was satisfied with our enthusiasm and led us to the tasting room.

Steve's colleague, Noah, was on hand to assist with serving beers in the tasting room.

The first beer to sample was Sam Adams Boston Lager. We were each given sampling glasses and jugs were passed down the tables for us to fill our glasses from. Steve stepped us through the beer appraisal process: Step 0 -  'Cheers'; Step 1 - Visual inspection to check appearance. Using some Caramel 60 malt in the recipe gives Boston Lager its amber colour;

 Step 2 - Aroma - notice the hops. Steve mentioned the importance of keeping beer away from sunlight to avoid skunky beer; Step 3 - Flavour. This can be tested both on the tongue and from the back of the throat. Step 4 - Mouthfeel and body. Swish it around your palate 'what we call chewing on your beer'.

The next beer is a dark beer - Belgian Porter. 5.8% ABV. Steve advised us to expect clove, banana and bubblegum flavours from the yeast.

The third beer is Chocolate Coffee Stout, an experimental beer, 6.4% ABV, 'breakfast in a glass' made with Sumatra coffe and baker's chocolate. This was the first time this beer had been brewed so I was privileged to get a chance to sample it.

Steve told us about Utopias the Sam Adams 'extreme beer' that is sold in ceramic bottles that are made in Brazil. Utopias holds the record for the highest ABV for any naturally fermenting beer (29.5% ABV).  A two month fermentation process involves feeding the beer with maple syrup. It is also the most expensive beer in the world. Steve said that Samuel Adams treat this as a fun project which is sold to distributors at cost. The beer is aged in barrels and blended and is not carbonated. Steve passed an empty bottle around for us to smell. It is brewed at the Jamaica Plain brewhouse and takes two years to make. It isn't bottled at the Jamaica Plain brewhouse so cannot be sold there, due to the restrictive license.

The 'bonus' fourth beer is a 'pretty unique' sour beer, Flavours Red, which includes about 10% Kosmic Mother Funk (KMF) 6.3% ABV. The recipe came from an employee not tied to the brewing progress who made a homebrew.
Steve asked for a vote on the group's favourite beers and it turned out that all four beers had about the same number of votes.
As we were leaving the tasting room, Steve mentioned that the tasting glasses 'are yours to keep and cherish forever - personally I think they make great shot glasses'. There is also brown paper for wrapping glasses on the exit from the gift shop. 

Gift shop items

Steve told us we could top up our glasses before leaving and drink in the gift shop but warned us not to go outside with beer in a glass as immediate arrest is possible due to strict Massachusetts drinking laws.

Thanks to Steve and Noah for hosting the tour and to Boston Brewing Company for hosting the brewery tour at the Samuel Adams brewhouse, Jamaica Plain.

Samuel Adams Brewery Tours - website link