| rev:text
| - After hearing so much about it from friends, I decided to take my boyfriend on a Steam Whistle brewery tour for his birthday.
We arrived about 30 minutes before the tour time we wanted, and before we even signed up we were each offered a glass of beer. We thankfully had no problems getting into the 12:15 tour (I was worried that since it was a Saturday the tours would be too busy and we'd have to wait until later in the afternoon).
The tours are as cheap as $10, but you have the option of purchasing a more expensive tour. The tour itself is exactly the same no matter what package you purchase. The price level dictates what kind of swag you get when the tour is completed. For $10 I got the tour and a Steam Whistle bottle opener. We splurged for the boyfriend and spent $15 for the tour and a 6-pack of beer when we left. Well worth it.
We waited in their well-decorated retail/gallery area, and my boyfriend enjoyed two glasses of beer (I'm not a beer drinker, so he had mine and his). You have the option of purchasing an additional pint while you wait, but I would warn you to wait until you are done your tour (I'll get into that shortly).
Once our tour was called, we were taken to a meeting room to hang up our jackets, grab a set of headphones, and have another glass of (free) beer. The headphones were optional, but were useful when it came to hearing the tour guide. Not too much happens on Saturdays (when we were there), but I guess it can get pretty noisy on the bottling floor. The headphones weren't the greatest and I found the volume level was constantly shifting on its own which meant I was adjusting them regularly. As I said, they weren't really needed when we were there, but I can't attest to other, noisier days.
We began the tour in their event hall with a bit of Toronto/Steam Whistle history. From there we were given a lesson in beer-making standards and shown the ingredients (all four of them) that are go into a bottle of Steam Whistle. They spend a lot of time on this, and while it is admittedly kind of boring to look at a jar of hops, the tour guide spoke very passionately about the beer and he and was really funny, so it wasn't too bad.
The rest of the tour took us around the bottling facility where you can see where the bottles get recycled, washed, and re-bottled. Earlier in the tour our tour guide dared someone to eat a hop. Because he did, my boyfriend was allowed to pull the Steam Whistle on the bottling floor. He was delighted.
The tour concluded with yet another glass of beer. After that we headed back down to the gallery to claim our swag.
My boyfriend left happy (and slightly buzzed, having drank both his and my glasses of beer).
Steam Whistle prides itself on having a very fresh beer, and my boyfriend was delighted to find that his 6-pack had been bottled that very week. Despite not being a beer drinker, I enjoyed the tour thoroughly and would recommend it to anyone who is looking for a unique way to spend an afternoon.
|
![[RDF Data]](/fct/images/sw-rdf-blue.png)
![[cxml]](/fct/images/cxml_doc.png)
![[csv]](/fct/images/csv_doc.png)
![[text]](/fct/images/ntriples_doc.png)
![[turtle]](/fct/images/n3turtle_doc.png)
![[ld+json]](/fct/images/jsonld_doc.png)
![[rdf+json]](/fct/images/json_doc.png)
![[rdf+xml]](/fct/images/xml_doc.png)
![[atom+xml]](/fct/images/atom_doc.png)
![[html]](/fct/images/html_doc.png)