Mayflower Brewing: Plymouth, MA
Britt and I had a crazy busy week so, on Sunday, we decided to take off and try out some new places. We went down towards Plymouth, Massachusetts. On our ride down Route 495, Britt looked for a place to explore and I remembered that Mayflower Brewing Company was down in the area!
We pulled into the brewery, walked into a very pleasantly laid out taproom, and were greeted by a very welcoming employee. When you go for a tasting, you get the option of 5 smaller pours (or as my friends call them, 'Sippies') or you can get five full smaller cup pours for ten dollars. We opted for five smaller pours then a pint of what we liked.
For our first three we tried the Golden Ale, Pale Ale, Spring Hop, and then I tried the IPA and the Daily Ration while Britt tried the Brown Ale and Porter. All of the beers we tried were delicious and would recommend reaching outside of your comfort zone to experience all of the beers they offer. My two favorite were the Daily Ration and the Spring Hop so I went for a pint of the Daily Ration, a wonderfully balanced session IPA that was light enough to have a few outside in the summer but packed enough taste to enjoy all day long without getting bored with it. Britt's favorites were the Porter and the Pale Ale. It's no wonder she decided on the porter, which we were told, is rated the number one porter in North America and in the top five worldwide. It was perfectly sweet and malty with a nice bitter finish.
We grabbed our pints and headed out to the beer tour! We were talking to our tour guide and learned a LOT about Mayflower. They opened their doors in 2008 with the Pale Ale as their first beer. We learned about both the history and link to the Mayflower as well as their process. They grind all of their own grains into grist and send all of their spent grains to a local farm for compost or for feed for their animals. They also showed us some of the grains they are using from Germany to make a new Bohemian Pilsner (Which Britt is very excited about). The rest of the brewing process was fairly straight forward but their canning line was impressive! The bottling line does about a pallet every an hour and a half where as the canning process is that same amount in fifteen minutes and that is slowed by the people placing the six packs in cases. We are excited that the new cans and they come out just in time for tailgating this summer!
The tour was one of the better brewery tours I've had, the beers were all tasty, and the people were extremely friendly. We can't wait till their open house on the second weekend in May where they introduce their Summer Rye and other beers for summer! Thanks for having us at Mayflower Brewing Company!
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