Tour of Craftsman Brewery
April 21, 2006 – 2:42 pmYesterday Ted, Ger, Roger, Greg, Mike, and I toured the brewery of the Craftsman Brewing Company here in Pasadena. Mark, the founder and one of the brewers, gave us the tour.
Craftsman has a unit in a business park just off the 210 freeway. Their setup was a bit bigger than I had anticipated. They basically operate out of a huge garage with brewing equipment along one wall, a big refrigerator in the back, and the beginning of a bottling line in the middle.
Mark started the tour with a description of the beer brewing process in general. He pointed out the particular piece of equipment they were using that corresponded to the step in the process he was describing. I haven’t done any home brewing, but both Ted and Roger have, and they were impressed with the sophistication of the Craftsman process relative to the rough-around-the-edges home brewing approach.
At the end of the tour, we got to do a little beer tasting. We had four of their beers: their hefeweizen, the 1903 lager, the Poppy Seeds pale ale, and their Indian pale ale. I like the beers in that order, with the hefeweizen being my favorite. It had a noticeable banana aroma to it, but not an overwhelming one. There was also some citrus hiding behind the banana. The color was a light, cloudy yellow. The beer was “fruity”, without being too sweet or pungent. I haven’t had too many hefeweizens (Widmer, Pyramid, Sam Adams, Hoegaarden), but I can safely say the Craftsman is my favorite of this style.
Craftsman doesn’t do any bottling yet, so the only way to get their beer is to either order a keg or head on down to Lucky Baldwins to get a pint (or two). What better excuse do you need to make a trip to Lucky’s?
3 Responses to “Tour of Craftsman Brewery”
Did you ask about the Craftsman Orange?
By adam on Apr 21, 2006
They were just starting to brew a batch when we arrived. And they didn’t have any left from the previous batches, so we couldn’t taste that one.
By jjk on Apr 21, 2006