Free beer, cold. Always a nice little bit of all right.
The best for me was at Walter’s Brewery in Eau Claire, Wisconsin. They had an open spigot in the barrel washing room, a stack of glasses, a tub of soapy water & a tub of rinse water.
Middling was Huber Brewery in Monroe, Wisconsin. We had to go through the shipping office and ask if we could have a beer. The secretary on guard duty would grudginly say “OK, but don’t abuse it.” I later leared that the trick was to use small-town family connections to get a job there, be put on the night shift and then drink your way through 8 hours like everyone else there.
The worst was Miller Beer in Milwaukee. You had to slog through their brewery tour, after which you received a wooden poker chip or two that could be redeemed for short beer at the end.
The Abita Brewing Co in Covington LA has courtesy taps of their best selling brews and root beers. They put you in the “break room” to wait for the tour on Saturday. Show up early enough and you’ll get your fill of Blackened VooDoo (yummy)! Tour is free and so is the beer. They trust you to know when to say when.
I work at a brewery, we’ve always got a few of our beers on tap. It was damned hot yesterday and I had a couple. Our little satellite brewery here isn’t really open to the public, but if you know someone you can get a tour, and usually if you stop by, and we can find someone that isn’t too busy, we’ll try to get you a quick tour. But anyway, back to the point.
When I give a tour I always start in the hospitality room and let you get a full beer in you and then a refill for during the tour. Then I usually have it timed so that by the time most people’s beers are empty we are standing in front of the bright beer tanks. I will then refill your glass with a beer that was just filtered and carbonated that day while explaining how time destroys beer. (yes I know about barleywines and RISs and such, shut up silenus ). Then we finish the tour back at the hospitality room where we do Q & A over another beer.
I am not a fool, I know that 99% of the people here for a tour are looking for a few free beers and, at best, are mildly interested in the actual process. So I try to make them happy.
Here in Fort Worth, the local Mensa meeting is held in a Coors hospitality room. There’s a bar with a bartender, and the beer on tap is free. Last time I went (which was some years ago), it was Coors and Coors Light (or Lite). They also have soda vending machines.
When I visited Cascade brewery in Hobart Tasmania a few years ago, the company had bought the brewery but not the distribution rights. So the free taste at the end of the tour was from bottles the brewery had bought from the nearest shop.
). Then we finish the tour back at the hospitality room where we do Q & A over another beer.