I toured the Sam Adams brewery in December of 2005. What a great experience.

The brewery is just a short walk from the T. We followed signs and entered a large room with interesting memorabilia in display cases, banners hanging from the ceiling, etc. We waited there and our tour guide came out just a few minutes before our tour time.

The guide had a great sense of humor and explained a little bit about the history of brewing in Boston, the company, and himself. We walked through a room loaded with awards and a funny picture of the founder jumping in a tank of beer (like in the commercials). After that, we went to the brewing area. The whole time, the guide told us about the process of making beer and made sure we didn't have any questions.

After about a half hour tour, we all went into the tasting room. For a small $2 donation, we got comemorative glasses and three free fills (and I mean fills, not those little 3 oz samples you get at other breweries). We sampled Boston Lager, Winter Lager, and Koggin, a locally available wheat-type beer flavored with orange. All were great and the guide explained how to properly taste a beer (as that is one of his job requirements at the Boston Brewing Company).

We've been to a number of brewery tours since then, but so far nobody has matched our Sam Adams guide for being informative and very entertaining.

If you really want to know how beer is made you'll like this tour. It is about 1 hour long and you get 21 oz of beer for a $2 voluntary donation.