In the middle of the tour, you hit the tasting room. On the weekend, they don't run the bottling machines, so we missed that operation. The tour guides are educated and make the tour fun. They take you through the brewery with stops and explanations along the way. Once on the tour, you go into a room where they get you organized, issue safety glasses and give you a sampler glass of beer which you take with you. We elbowed our way to the bar and ordered an IPA flight while we waited on the tour. But, with our purchased tour tickets, we were allowed to go on in. When we returned for our 4:45 PM tour, there was a line to get into the building. Note - beer is not FREE in the beer hall. Even at 11, there was already a line for brewery tour tickets ($5) and people were already ordering beer and hanging in the beer hall. We got to the brewery around 11AM on a Saturday (as suggested on the website) to buy tour tickets for later in the day. What you have is one really long bar with every Harpoon beer available, long tables and people. Full glass for outside views and glass views of part of the brewery. You walk to the building and go upstairs and emerge in their large, European style beer hall that is very open and airy. The location is on the water in a commercial/industrial area. It's a short walk to/from several of the stops to the brewery. We took the Silver line on the T to get there. This place is wildly popular on the weekends, you are not going to be able to just walk in and expect to tour. I highly recommend reading the web site and heed their advise regarding a visit and brewery tour. If you don't like real beer, don't bother (although the pretzels are REALLY good) I like harpoon beers, so for me the tour is a 'must visit' for Boston. After that, it was back to the bar, and shop for merchandise. Next stop the bottling plant, and more technical details of the lengths they go to keep the beer at its best. The group coming behind us drove us out, but it didn't feel as though we were being rushed (not sure how long we are on their, but it could easily have been 20mins). If we didn't get to try everything, it was our own fault. Our guide gave us a brief and entertaining description of each of the beers (for us, if memory serves, it was Rye IPA, IPA, Harpoon Ale, Summer Ale, White IPA, Black IPA, UFO White, UFO Raspberry, Stout, Directors Cut, and Harpoon Cider) and then it was up to us to decide what we wanted to try. The tasting room is a relatively small bar with taps for whatever is available on the day. The good news is that the beer is still excellent, as the next stop on the tour demonstrated. What you see is a lot of stainless steel and a small control room where the computer that controls it all lives. Harpoon is no longer a small craft brewery, but has grown to small industrial scale. If you've been to a brewery before, there is nothing new here. Although there were probably 30 of us in the group, his commentary was clear, aided with a mike. The tour itself started with a sample of IPA, and then our tour guide took us into the brewery. It was freshly baked, the dipping sauces freshly prepared, and delicious. If you visit, you might not think to try the pretzels, but think again. The beer was excellent, but that was to be expected. We filled the time with a beer each, and a pretzel to share. Learn more here about the history of Harpoon, how 306 Northern Ave.We arrived at about 3:30 on a Monday, for the 4pm tasting to discover that this was the first day of their new regime of running tours during the week, so we put our name down. We have lots of tables, available on a first-come first-served basis. Outdoors Harpoon is a safe, relaxing outdoor drinking and dining space with both sunny and shaded or tented seating located in front of the Harpoon Beer Hall in Boston, MA. Consider trying a sampler flight while visiting! We’ve made some changes to ensure safety for all at the Harpoon Beer Hall (brewery tours and communal tables are gone during the pandemic) but these are unchanged: fresh beer, cider, and seltzer, delicious food, and friendly staff! Due to limited capacity per state guidelines, reservations for the Beer Hall are recommended and walk-ins are accepted based on availability. Reservations are accepted (and encouraged for busier times like Fridays and Saturdays), but we do have space for walk up guests to our spacious Beer Hall and Outdoor area on a first come, first serve basis. Join us inside at our Beer Hall or outside at our brand-new Outdoors Harpoon, an outdoor drinking and dining space located in front of the Harpoon Beer Hall in Boston, MA. We have opened both indoor and outdoor spaces featuring our brewery-fresh line up of drinks and food made on site.
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