Adventures with DB- 

Adventure 1- Samuel Adams Brewery tour in Boston, MA. 

    Hi all! It's me, DB! 

    Welcome to my brand-new blog series, Adventures with DB, where I share with you my most recent adventures on the road. I'm glad to tell you about these trips here in this blog! I'm also glad to share with you photos that I have taken during these adventures. I'll explain each part of the adventure as we go along in this series. 

    And now, without further ado, let's begin.

    My dad and I just went on a tour of the Samuel Adams brewery in Boston, MA. Well, it's located near Dorchester. The Sam Adams brewery started all the way back in 1984, the year I was born! It was named after the Founding Father and Patriot, Samuel Adams, who not only helped the US win the Revolutionary War, but also inherited his father's brewery on King Street in Boston (now State Street). The beer is brewed by the Boston Beer Company, founded by Jim Koch in Cambridge, MA. Samuel Adams is the best-selling beer brewed by the company. The beer is also made in Ohio and Pennsylvania. 

       Our first stop on the tour is the ingredients. We learned so much about what each ingredient brings to the brews. The ingredients include water, hops, grain, and yeast. Yep, the same yeast that we typically use to make bread is also used to make beer. The water is what gives the beer it's liquid form and the hops give it it's flavor. Malt is also used in the making of beer. The tour guide will tell you more info on the ingredients if you want to take the tour yourself. I do recommend it. 

 

    This is called an IBU chart. It's used to measure out how many hops a beer has. The more hops a beer has, the more alcohol it has. If you want a beer with less hops, then you should go for one that has an IBU of less than 20. Regular beers have IBUs of 20-45, while beers with the most hops have more. The Sam Adams beers usually list the IBU on the label of each of their beer bottles. 

    Here's a beaker that lets you smell 1 of the 2 kinds of hops the brewery had in hand for the tour. Just squeeze the black pump before you smell. I couldn't smell anything, though. That's because since COVID, I lost some of my sense of smell. 

    This is a World Beer Map, where you can find where all types of beers are made! 

    

    We next went into the room where all the making the beer "magic" happened! This is a piece of equipment used in the beer making process. All the ingredients are combined, then they go down the blue tube to help make the beer. The tour guide will give you more info. 

    This machine helps with the yeast. Since yeast is an active, living thing, it can't be boiled with the other ingredients in the other machine. If it was made with the boiling water, it will die and we don't want it to do that. It adds to the flavor of the beer. 

    Lastly was the tasting room. Unfortunately, I didn't get any pics from this place. This is the place where they test all the beers before putting them out in the markets. The tour guide taught us how they tested each beer, using 4 of our senses. Can you guess which sense we didn't use? 

Now for the beers we tasted. We tasted 3 different beers. 

    

    Our first beer is the Samuel Adams Summer Ale, a seasonal offering usually made and sold during the summer. This has a low IPU. I don't like beer myself, but if I was forced to get one, I would get either this or their Just the Haza IPA or even their Golden beer. All those beers are non-alcoholic, which takes the brewery a long time to make! We got to taste the Summer Ale before the tasting room. We got to taste it when we made our way to the main room where they made the beer. 

    Our next beer we got to taste is the original Sam Adams Boston Lager, the one that started it all and got the company tons of awards! This beer is the original classic that is sold not just at stores, but also at stadiums like Fenway Park, which is perfect for it since Samuel Adams is the official beer of my favorite Major League Baseball team, the Boston Red Sox! (I also like some other teams too, like the Phillies, Cubs and Angels, but I definitely di not like the Yankees!) If you like beer with hot dogs, then you will like this with a Fenway Frank at the Paak (that's Park in Bostonian!) 

    The final beer we got to taste was the Golden Pilsner. This had an IPU of 32, so it's up there in the alcohol department! This should be a once in a while drink for those of you who like beer. Very heavy on the German hops. 

    Yes, we did get to keep the little glass cups. The brewery also has a gift shop and taproom. 

    That's it for our 1st adventure! I'll be telling you more about future adventures soon! 

    If you're visiting "your cousin from Boston" (like their new jingle in their ads), you should do this tour. Even if you're like me and don't like beer, learning how it's made can be fun. Please check out their website by clicking here:  Boston Brewery Tours | Samuel Adams. They will ask you if you're 21 or older. 

    Also, please, no touchee on the barrels and on anything else your tour guide tells you not to touch. And the kids should not drink the beer. Anyone 21 and over can taste the beer, but anyone under 21 can't! 

    Please enjoy these extra pics!

    Thanks for reading!  See you on the next adventure!