May 12, 2012
Cool place. Feels like making a pilgrimage. Us beer owes a lot to sam, but tour is ok. Free beer us good though. A worthwhile stop.

May 11, 2012
Visited this place at the end of April 2012. Plenty of people on a Saturday afternoon but the tours are well organize and they are able to accommodate quite a few people. This is basically free since they only request small donations. The tour last about one hour and takes you through the different beer brewing steps. It was quite neat to try different malt and see the barrels for aging the beers. The tap room is interesting with three free samples. I think this warrant the detour since it is quiet easily accessible by train.

May 2, 2012
Wandered in here after an art event nearby. This place was out of control! They were pouring samples of various test batches, there were huge lines for the tour. I felt like a sheep. The beer paraphernalia was pretty cool, but this was run a bit too much like an Applebee’s for me to really enjoy the experience.

March 28, 2012
Located in a busy area in Jamaica Plains. There’s hardly a place to park, so driving there might be a challenge in the end. The brewery itself is very small. While I was there, they were renovating the place, but the tour was still very interesting. It consists of going into a little area and just standing there listening to a guide talk. He was very knowledgeable and I learned quite a bit. After he was done talking, he then brought us into a tasting room where we tried 3 different beers. After that, the tour ends right into the gift shop (very clever). Prices were reasonable for Boston but still a bit high. Overall, I’m glad to have taken a tour here.

November 15, 2011
It was cool to check out the brewery, but the tour isn’t much. There was maybe 5 minutes of looking at any actual brewing equipment, with another 5 minutes on ingredients and 20 minutes in the tasting room. The tour is mostly an ad pitch where they tell you how great their beer is, but that’s to be expected. The tour guide was clearly talking to us like we were a bunch of meatheads looking to get hammered on free beer, which maybe the case for most of the people who come in. The waiting room has a bunch of awards (medals, ribbons, banners, trophies) which are cool to see, and a nice little gift shop. They appear to brew very little beer here (most of production is in PA and OH). Not a bad place to stop by, but certainly not an essential brewery tour.

July 25, 2011
Missed the tour. So there was only merchandise shop for me. Lots of not so interesting clothing. Only three beers on bottles (Barrel Room Collection) available.

August 7, 2010
A must if you are in Boston. The tour is free and you get a small Sam Adams glass to take home and use for sampling. Their sampling room was unique...it had that beer hall / home bar feel to it. We got 3 samples but I wish they let us sample something odd. I understand giving us the Lager and even a seasonal but I wish we got to have one of their special beers. Still a great value and easy to get to from the train!

May 19, 2010
Definitely worth a visit. Decent tour, but it’s not the main facilities. They use this more as a testing facility for new releases -- and guess what? They are going to test it on you. Expect to try some Sam Adams variety you’ve probably never had before. They usually try it out here before deciding whether or not to release it.

January 16, 2010
Decent tour. You don’t actually see the whole brewery, but a small part of it that is attached to the tasting room. In the tasting room we got 3 samples, including 2 that hadn’t actually been sold. The samples were poured into a small tasting glass that we got to keep for free. One of the unsold beers we tasted was actually really good, I’m surprised they didn’t go ahead and make more of it. Overall defiantly worth stopping by, but I hear that they can fill up tours hours in advance so watch out.

January 2, 2010
Took a brewery tour. Fun stuff. Informational, free, and fun. Great way to start a saturday.