(Avon Park, FL) Hi 84 Lo 58 – We have a couple of friends who turned us on to Yuengling Beer. It’s a small, family-owned brewery in Pottsville, PA. It turns out they have a brewery in Tampa, so today we decided to go check it out. When Jim first heard about Yuengling he thought it was a Chinese brand, but it’s the oldest brewery in the U.S.
D.G. Yuengling, a German immigrant, started brewing beer in 1829, and the company is now in its fifth generation of family ownership. It’s not only the oldest brewery in the U.S., but they recently passed Sam Adams as the LARGEST American brewery. (All the big breweries like Anheuser-Busch and Miller are foreign-owned.) The tour lasted a little over an hour.
The bar in the tasting room.
Big room for parties
Big tanks where the grain is mixed with water.
Grain silos. The grain is off-loaded from train cars.
It was a large tour group with over 50 people from all over.
The bottling area. (Sorry for the poor quality of the pictures, but I took them through dark windows with a lot of reflections.)
Huge tanks where they ferment the beer. Each tank holds 1,160 barrels of beer.
The tasting room at the end of the tour. They brew seven different beers, and we could try out any or all of them. That’s Jim with the blue hat.
I still can’t say I like the beer. I’m more of a wine drinker. A couple of things we learned about beer:
* Does beer taste different in a can vs a bottle? Sometimes yes. If you have mercury in fillings in your teeth, the aluminum edge of the opening on the can may electrically with the mercury, causing a different taste.
* The shelf life of beer is 120 days for bottles and cans, and 45 days for kegs.
* Cans are better for storage because they block light. Light coming through bottles affects the beer inside. Brown bottles are best, followed by green. Clear bottles are the worst (like Corona bottles).
It was a fun day. Hopefully we’ll have the chance to visit their main brewery in Pottsville, PA someday.
9 comments:
I did not know they had a brewery in FL. It's been a long time since I've been to the one in Pottsville. Everyone here on PA affectionately calls it 'the Chinese Beer'! :-)
I was introduced to Yuengling years ago and always liked it. I think beer definitely tastes better from glass. I started buying cans recently since they take up less room when you are saving them for recycling.
Yuengling is one of my favorite American beers. Looks like a great tour! And yes, beer tastes different in a can!
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We love brewery tours. Did one in November at Abita Springs near New Orleans. Great photos. I laughed when I read that the owners are Germans, I read the name and thought it was 2 Chinese names joined together!! LOL!
PS Hate the new word verification thingy.
Rick really likes that beer and now that he knows it's the oldest American beer, he likes it even better :)
I was having some of that beer this evening. Had no idea about the breweries.
owner of restaurant had someone bring him back some of this when they went to PA. I had never heard of it either...
BTW one of the great grandsons
of Augusta Busch, William Busch has started a new brewery. Currently being made in old Heilmann plant in Wisc. will be opening a plant in St louis shortly. Apparently Busch family not happy about the take over.
Looks like another place to add on my bucket list. I'm not much on beer, but being from PA I always liked Rolling Rock so maybe this will be another one that I like. However, wine is more my style too.
Looks like another place to add on my bucket list. I'm not much on beer, but being from PA I always liked Rolling Rock so maybe this will be another one that I like. However, wine is more my style too.
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