This past Saturday I and my better half took our first ever tour of the Harpoon brewery, located in the South Boston Seaport. We've both been wanting to tour Harpoon for years, but the time was never right. Finally, we found ourselves with a Saturday morning to spend in Boston. So, after a Dim-Sum brunch in Chinatown, we headed out to the brewery.
I've been on a couple of winery tours, and at least one other brewery tour, and enjoyed them all. I like learning about how things were made, and I'm always amazed at what it takes to produce food and beverages at even a modest scale. The Harpoon tour did not disappoint. As expected, we were given an overview of the process of creating and cooking wort, and brewing the final product. We got all the dirt on yeast strains, water purification methods, protein strands and all the other good stuff that goes into brewing. The real unexpected treat of the day, though, was getting to sample raw beer (prior to filtering and carbonation) drawn straight from the bottom of one of the tanks. The IPA we tried was cloudy, and, as you would expect, a little flat. But it had a lot of flavor. It was way cool.
After the tour we retired to the friendly confines of the Harpoon store, where we got to sample from among about nine varieties, including
Leviathan Imperial IPA,
Oak Aged Dunkel (this year's 100 Barrel Series offering),
UFO Raspberry Hefeweizen and
Leviathan Barleywine. Of the last, more later.
It was a great tour on a great day. I highly recommend it to anyone who likes beer, or Boston.
