June 24, 2011. My daughter, who lives in Georgia, flew up to Pennsylvania with my granddaughter and planned out a visit to the Yuengling Brewery. We were joined by my son and his family for the tour. Yuengling is America's Oldest Brewery.
The tour started at the museum-gift shop and the pin-maps on the wall showed the many, many visitors from the USA and around the world.
Our tour guide escorted us to the tavern area where she explained the nature of the tour, plus an overview of the how beer was made showing us small bottles of ingredients that went into making the various Yuengling brews. The bar was very ornate with vintage artifacts all around.
Next, our tour guide took us through the plant showing the sequence of events of the brewing process and what ingredients were involved in each step. Original equipment was copper, but was replaced with stainless steel because copper required serious cleaning several times a day. (copper sure looked nice though). The inside of these giant kettles had interesting stirring mechanisms.
On the way to the canning and bottling building, we passed the supply and distribution areas.
Our tour guide explained what was going on in the bottling and canning process and invited us to walk in and observe.
The beer can filling and sealing machines were a blurr with speed, so our guide showed us the parts.
Also a blurr was the speed of the bottling process. It was amazing technology.
This lively fellow was very helpful to the seven folks in our party. When we arrived, I spotted him at the front of the brewery at a room which had access to the sidewalk. He explained where the brewery tour would begin, where we could park and he gave us several recommendations for having lunch near the brewery. His information was quite valuable. In this photo, he spotted us midway through our tour and came forward to say hello.
As we headed toward the caves where the original beers were stored at a constant temperature of 47 degrees, we passed several areas honoring our service men and women. It was a good feeling to view that patriotic spirit !
Yuengling, the founder, built his brewery on the side of a mountain so he could hand-dig fermentation caves to naturally refrigerate the beer. This allowed him to serve more people in outlying areas from Pottsville. When modern refrigeration took over, Yuengling kept everything in tact to preserve history.
Another nice thing about the tour was the numerous advertisements on display from today and back to earlier times. It made walking around the brewery very interesting.
At the end of the tour, we reconvened at the bar where everyone chose one of their favorite Yuengling brews. My wife Paddy and I chose the Premium light.
No trip is complete without a visit to the museum-gift shop. Paddy bought a bunch of stuff and our tour guide was on hand at the cash register.
It was a fun tour and we all learned a lot about Yuengling brewing and the Yuengling family.