World's 5 Top Brewery Tours
By: Lee

Guinness, Dublin, Ireland

Leased for 9,000 years in 1759 by Arthur Guinness at £45 per year, St. James's Gate has been the home of Guinness ever since. It became the largest brewery in Ireland in 1838, and was the largest in the world in 1914, covering 64 acres. Although no longer the largest brewery in the world, it is still the largest brewer of stout in the world. During the 19th and early 20th centuries, the brewery owned most of the buildings in the surrounding area, including many streets of housing for brewery employees, and offices associated with the brewery. The brewery also made all of its own power using its own power plant.

There is an attached exhibition on the 250-year-old history of Guinness, called the Guinness Storehouse.

Guinness Storehouse, the "Home of Guinness", is Dublin's most popular tourist attraction. A converted brewing factory, it is now a Guinness museum, incorporating elements from the old brewing factory to explain the history of its production. Some of the old brewing equipment is on show, as well as stout ingredients, brewing techniques, advertising methods and storage devices.

The exhibition takes place over 7 floors, in the shape of a 14 million pint glass of Guinness. The final floor is the Gravity Bar, which has an almost 360° panorama over the city, where visitors can claim a free pint of "the black stuff".

The storehouse is where they used to add the yeast to the beer for fermentation.

Unlike the Anheuser-Busch Brewery tour, Guinness Storehouse visitors do not get to see the beer being brewed in front of them. But from various vantage points in the building you may see parts of the brewhouse, vats, grain silos and the keg yard.

Chimay in Belgium

The Chimay Brewery ("Bières de Chimay") is a Belgian brewery founded inside Scourmont Abbey, in the Belgian municipality of Chimay in 1862. The brewery produces three widely distributed ales and a patersbier exclusively for the monks; they are known as Trappist beers because they are made in a Trappist monastery. The brewing plant was updated in 1988, and as of 2005 produced 120,000 hectolitres annually.

Since 1876 the monastery has also made cheese, and currently offers four cheeses.

As with all other Trappist breweries, the beer is sold only for financial support of the monastery and good causes . The brewery business pays rent for use of the property within the abbey, which is used to support the monastic community. The majority of the profit from the sale of the beer is distributed to charities and for community development around the region.

Kiuchi Brewery in Ibaraki, Japan

Kiuchi Brewery is an awesome brewery in Naka, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan. It was established in 1823 and produces beer, sake, and shochu. Its products combine European beer-making technology with traditional Japanese brewing techniques; for example, its XH Hitachino Nest Beer is matured in shochu casks.

Karlsberg Brewery - Germany

Karlsberg Brewery is in Homburg. So if thirst is bothering you make sure try Karlsberg Urpils out.

Established 1878 in the city of Homburg, Saarland (then part of Bavaria), the brewery was named after the nearby hill and castle (the castle was built in 1755 and later destroyed by French revolutionary troops). Karlsberg's ownership has been handed down through generations. The current owner, Richard Weber, is the great grandson of the brewery's founder.

Brasserie Caracole in Falmignoul, Belgium

The Brasserie Caracole is a Belgian artisanal brewery based in Falmignoul (near Dinant) that is known to warm the water with a wood-fired oven. The bottling and labelling are made manually.

The brewery was already existing in 1766 under the name Brasserie Moussoux, then changed its name Brasserie Lamotte in 1941 and was finally taken over in 1992 to become the Brasserie Caracole.

Coors Brewery in Denver, Colorado

The main tourist draw for the city, the Coors Brewery in Golden is also the largest beer brewing plant in the world on a single site. It is easily recognized for its sheer size and space consumption, and in particular, its plain grey walls and large, red "Coors" sign mural. If you visit Golden, you will undoubtedly notice the distinct fragrance of grains, hops, and alcohol wafting through the air at any point in town, any time of the year. The brewery is a popular attraction mainly because of the free guided tours it offers. These tours last about 45 minutes, and guests over the age of 21 are treated to a free sample of the brewery's confectionery.